Come on Over
by self-piercing
Summary: Everything is different after the war, everyone sacrificed something, some more than others. Some went in with eyes open and some never close them to avoid the memories. Itachi didn't die. He came back. Back to be worshiped as a hero, but not by everyone.
1. Mate

Looking at him all I could see was problems.

For some time I would see him everywhere and I couldn't get used to it. I don't think I ever will. Itachi. He's back and he's a hero. He was to be worshiped and appreciated. He was to be given what he wanted when he wanted. I hadn't agreed on any of this.

I had been out one night. Celebrating peace, celebrating life and celebrating death.

I had been there alone just as I wanted. I liked being alone now. Everything had changed and so had naturally I had too. I wasn't bubbly and talkative anymore. I had been forced to grow up and give up on my childish ways. I had lost my father and then I had lost myself.

He had been sitting next to me ordering hot sake.

I hadn't talked to him. I appreciated everything he had done. It didn't change the fact that he had done them. Murdering his family, all those people since he left town, to his own brother he had still done those things. He might have noble goals but what he did to obtain what he wanted hadn't been noble.

He had a darkness over him and it seemed like I was the only one to see it. I was the only one to ever voice it out loud.

Feasibly it was just me and I didn't rule out the fact that I had lost my mind all over again.

I had voiced her concern to Shikamaru and Chouji. They had scolded me when I expected them to support me and listen to what I had to say. Of course he's dark; think of all that he had done for all of them. How would I have felt if it had been me in that position?

It didn't change anything. He had willingly done it. I hadn't asked for anything that happened during and after the war. I would give anything to have my old life back. I wouldn't have changed it for the world. He had. Why was he the hero when he went to it willingly? I had no more respect for him than the normal commoner on the street. I still feared him as I did before the war.

Had I met Itachi on the street I would have turned around and run.

I wouldn't have greeted him with a thank you and gone on with my day. I would have done everything to avoid those dark eyes that were meeting my bright blue ones right now. Those dark, sullen eyes that looked at everything and nothing at the same time, I hated them.

He gave me a short smile before turning over again. He was crutched over the bar disk head resting over his drink. He had come here to hide from praises and being generally adored. He was nothing special. What he had done he would gladly do again. He was nothing special he had just done what everyone else would have done for their home town.

I looked down at my own drink. I wasn't celebrating anymore. I was wallowing in death. Pain suffered and blood spilt, some of it mine.

It hadn't been fair but it was life. Life wasn't fair. It was pain.

Music was playing in the badly lit bar. There was some chatter in the background. I didn't know who or what, one of them or just commoners. It didn't change the noise. They sounded the same when they talked, laughed, cried but never the same when they died.

Itachi was twirling a bill around his fingers, front, back, front, back rip the bill out then repeated the motion. I hoped he would pay and leave already. I didn't feel comfortable sitting so close to him.

I swung my left leg over my right thigh. I pulled my skirt down some. The fact that nobody was looking wasn't a good enough reason to show off your underwear.

It had been long, it had been long enough time. I hadn't been able to move on. Shikamaru had married Temari, Choji a commoner and I had a pending proposal from Sai. I knew I should just marry him and get over it. I had lost the most important person in my life. There was no rushing my mourning.

Things would never be the way I imagined them growing up, like I had wanted and wished for. I was used to always getting my way. It was simply the way it was supposed to be. Now nothing of what I had dreamed about become true.

"Don't let the darkness eat you up."

Who was he to talk about darkness to me? My mouth opened while my mind worked quickly to come up with a response. I couldn't think of any it was all an empty void. I then started pondering if I had ever heard him speak before. The fact that I was surprised how feminine almost his voice had sounded I would go for a no, not that I could remember. I had always imagined him with a deep and mellow voice. One that told of the life he had lived, the horrors he had seen and created.

"I don't think of you as a good person, and I'd rather not you talked to me."

"Oh, sorry. I forgot you're the princess around here."

He sipped his drink before he shrugged and finished it in one go. As the burning liquid traveled down his throat I humped and started pulling my hair. It had grown long. It reached well past the edge to the chair I was sitting on. I had been meaning to have it cut if for a long time. It doesn't matter to my profession anymore. I had been deemed mentally unfit to do missions and was left to run the flower shop my father had left me, which I had closed. It was a joke, mentally unfit.

Itachi looked at me over his shoulder. I was an interesting character I knew that. Men were always telling me.

He had seen me around town but never seen much of me. It was almost as I disappeared once he came too close and that was the case. We never attended the same social events even with his brother as our link. It was almost as if I was a magical myth to him. A myth about the blond miss who detested him, the only one in our town.

He lifted his hand signaling the bartender to fill up his cup. Itachi handed her the bill he had been fiddling with earlier. He thanked her and they exchanged some words. The bartender moved over to me with the same bottle and filled it before she bit her lip.

"Eh… It's from the man over there. He's sorry he called you a princess. The King is gone so you're Queen now even if you're… looking more like a cheap pauper. At least he bought you a drink, right?"

She tried to give me a smile before she moved on to start cleaning some already clean glasses. It didn't matter that he bought me a drink.

I looked down on the glass. I contemplated drinking it but didn't want to give him the satisfaction. I didn't want to be in debt to him. This wasn't an offer this was a power battle. I couldn't stand him and I didn't want him to have anything on me. I simply wouldn't drink it. I could order my own drinks. I didn't have an unlimited spending account as Itachi had been handed but I could still afford a drink or two.

"Do you think your father would be proud if he saw your and the life you're leading? Because mine was when I stabbed my sword directly into his heart."

I tipped the glass he had bought me. I didn't care that most of it spilled on my lap. The alcoholic drink started dripping on my left knee. I could feel the stain on my sheer pantyhose growing. The smell entered my nose and I didn't flinch. I was drenched and reeking of alcohol and I couldn't be bothered.

I didn't know why he was addressing me in such a matter. I had heard Sakura mess about how much of a gentleman he was, hoping it would rub off on Sasuke. If this was the definition of a perfect gentleman I would continue to stay clear of Sakura and Sasuke.

Itachi looked back down in his sake glass and grinned. He was getting to me. He knew that. He would make me break with his words.

Itachi knew I was the apple of everyons eyes, with hair like an angel and a smile that could melt everyone. Itachi knew I was a devil in disguise. I was a total bitch with a face like a sour fruit.

To him I looked good, I was tempting but if you ever sat your teeth in me I would make you cringe, I was sour. I had become bitter.

I was the only one who still hated him.

The bartender threw her the towel over at me. The one she had been rubbing glasses with. I nodded a thank you and laid it on my lap. The towel read Corona, such a dull beer.

Itachi knew I was once everybody's friend. I was a social butterfly always had been even growing up. They always said I had low self-esteem due to my cheerful and flirty behavior. Then why was it that I always used to look like the cat who got the cream? Just like him.

Now I just looked sad and he was mad, mad when he had no reason to. Mad because I didn't worship him, mad that I was uncomfortable sitting three stools down from him, mad because I was kicking in the bar disk slow in the same rhythm as the music playing. Mad because my hair was so long that it would get in the way when I was out on missions. Mad that I didn't adore him.


	2. His Mercy

"What happened to you Ino, did just give up?"

He would do better than that to make me respond to that. I signaled for the bartender to get me another drink. I needed to drink in the same pace as Itachi he would not have me beat.

"You remember when we were young? When we had those heir and heiress meetings?"

Of course I remembered. The whole thing was suspicious and I knew my parents only sent me there to find someone to marry and tie bonds with. We were there because we were supposedly the elite. We were all going to be leaders and we made bonds and alliances at those meetings. I can't remember seeing much of Itachi, just a few times. He wasn't there simply because he was powerful enough alone, he didn't make alliances. He was offered alliances and could have whatever girl he wanted, still could. Everyone loves the big hero Itachi.

"I remember."

I remember being one out of two girls and looked down upon. I remember being all alone as Shikamaru was sleeping and Choji eating. I tried befriending Hinata but she had been told she was too good for me and should try befriending someone from a more respectful clan. I never made any friends going there. I don't know what my parents had been thinking about, we already had alliances set up and locked down.

"Nobody dare approach you, it was pointless. We all believed you were going to end up with Shikamaru or Choji. They're both married now, but not to you."

Sure he must have had a reason for bringing this up. It wasn't to go down memory lane to laugh about our common connection.

"Don't think I don't know why you're here. Your father would be ashamed to see you here. You know he had plans for you?"

I was only here to have a drink and think. I had come here in a good mood before I started talking to Itachi.

"Look around you, none of the heirs of the other clans want you, even your old teammates are spoken for. You're desperate to have children and secure your line that you're looking for a civilian. You're not getting younger."

It hadn't been my idea. Not that I knew. Sure if I was to meet someone and start a family with it wouldn't be a bad thing but it wasn't like I was seeking it out. I was here because of the cheap prices and because nobody I knew uses to go to this bar.

"You're willing to make your clan worse by skimping on the good genes because nobody is willing to give them to you. Bad genes from a civilian are better than no genes, right?"

I laughed. He wasn't any better himself. He was trying to feel bad about something he hadn't been able to himself.

"You're older than me and hopelessly single without children. What is your problem? Can't deliver the genes you keep messing about? Can't help make up for the mistake you did, you're only one out of two left from your clan."

"I thought it was perfectly clear that killing my own kin wasn't a mistake. It's not like I tripped through the whole compound with my sword out killing everyone by mistake. Does it make you uncomfortable that I killed my family that easily when you struggle just killing pests you find on your plants?"

First off there weren't any bugs on my plants. They were all perfectly healthy and you could be sure of that when you went by my flower shop and bought a plant. It was my pride, my flowers. Everything was in the perfect order there.

I was about to respond to him when the bartender walked up to us.

"You're ninjas right? Well, a few of our customers…"

Itachi knew what was about to come. They felt it uncomfortable when they spoke about the horrible things we had to do to keep their sorry asses safe. Therefore we had to leave and we were already on our feet ready to pay leaving some extra on the counter.

It had become darker outside then when I had walked in. The air was crisp and the stroll home would do me good.

"It's the other way!"

I didn't know who Itachi had seen on the street and I didn't care everyone was bestfriends with Itachi now so it could be anybody. I heard him starting to move the same way as me. I would stop by the shop and get some cigarettes just to get rid of him. I didn't want him tripping two steps behind me the whole way.

There was a tap on my shoulder and once again he repeated his words.

"It's the other way, seriously Ino."

I turned around. I would think he had mistaken me for someone else if he hadn't spoken my name.

"My place, it's the other way."

This was Ludacris, I wasn't going to go with him to his place. Not after the way he had been acting.

"I can tell that you're not done drinking."

I could tell that he didn't want me to come with him to drink. He just wanted someone to come with him. Itachi never had a regular childhood growing up, he didn't have a childhood at all. He had to jump from toddler to adult. It was possible that his way to get my attention was to be cruel. That way I would pay attention to him. He never adopted and learned how to interact with others in a propper way. He was never allowed to grow up.

I nodded and turned around.

"We can invite some more people if you'd like?"

Itachi knew that they most likely wouldn't come. Sure they greeted him on the streets and were thankful for what he had done, but Ino was right. He was still the lunatic who had killed his clan and done horrible thing ever since. They were still afraid of him because of what he had done.

I was different. I wasn't afraid of him, I was mad. I still couldn't believe how he could have killed off his whole clan when I so desperately wanted my father back. It wasn't fair to me and in some twisted way I was jealous of him.

"No, it's late. You don't have to bother other people."

I started thinking on the way to his home that it had sounded like I mean that he was bothering me. He wasn't, not really. Sure I would have rather gone home and gone to sleep but there was something about his eyes, his aura. There was something he was emitting.

I hadn't walked this route since I was a child and went to visit Sasuke. It was as eerie as ever with all the empty houses and walked closer to the man who had made them empty.

Itachi walked straight ahead. Sasuke must have offered him their old house. To me it was morbid living here. I wasn't able to sleep in my family home anymore. I had borrowed Naruto's old rundown apartment. He was off living with Hinata in her grand mansion. It wasn't like he was missing that tired dump.

As we came closer we could hear voices emitting from a house. The house was fairly close to the main mansion and the lights shun reaching the porch. I couldn't make out what the voices were shouting about but I could hear that they belonged to Sasuke and Sakura no questions about that.

"Sasuke is even more desperate for a child than you are, Sakura isn't."

Itachi ran up their stairs and rang a bell outside on their porch. It was the brother's way of telling the other that they were home. The yelling inside died out and Itachi ran down and continued walking. Ino followed closely behind him. There was something about this place that made her feel watched and followed by something beyond the grave.

Itachi unlocked the door and what was behind the door surprised Ino. It was nothing like she had remembered. Itachi must have renovated. Instead of the dark wood she was greeted by white walls and paintings, carpets and details in warm colors.

I placed my sandals by the door and decided it was safest to follow Itachi through the house. I wasn't familiar and it had been years since I had been inside. It was several years ago when Sasuke had celebrated his birthday that one time. It was enough celebrating it that one time and he had decided never again.

"What would you like to drink?"

Itachi turned on the lights and it revieled a living room. There was a couch and a table. The walls were painted in the lightest green and plants were placed in one of the corners. On the walls hung several family pictures and it jerked something inside me seeing a smaller Sasuke on the back of his older brother. Out of all the people on the pictures in this room only two were still alive.

I could never grasp what had happened. How something so horrible and dramatic was for the best. Even if I was a ninja I was against slaughter. This had been manslaughter. Couldn't the children have been spared? I had often even thought it had been better had Sasuke too lost his life that night.

"I'll see what I can find."

Itachi answered my lacking response. I walked up to the wall to have a closer look at the pictures. There was one of the whole clan. It had been taken a year before they had been massacred at the compound and his partents in the house she was inside right now.

"You think it's morbid, don't you?"

I didn't know how long he had been gone. I hadn't notice that he had returned before he spoke. I cursed at myself for being so relaxed around him.

"It's like they're all watching me from beyond the grave."

Itachi laughed. To him they were all dead and gone. He didn't think that much about them at all but he could understand that others didn't like it.

"It was Sasuke who had hung it up. I only hung up the pictures of the two of us. The ones I had hid, there wasn't any other pictures remaining."

It must have been one of the first things Sasuke destroyed when he came home alone after losing everyone he ever cared for.

"I found you some red wine. Some girl left it here a while ago and she didn't have any more class than you so you'll probably like it."

There it was again. I was uncertain if he was aware that the words he spoke could possible hurt me. I wouldn't let them. I knew I had class. I was almost scar free and never got my hands to bloody, I always made sure my outfit was wrinkle free and my hair perfect.

"I'm sad you're such a simple man."

He poured himself a glass from another bottle after handing me my glass. It smelled clean. What difference did it really make if it was filled with poison? I would just become another plot taken on the grave yard which had grown so large after the war. Those who would mourn me most were either gone or had new people to occupy them.

"If I wanted to kill you I'd make a lot more mess than just poisoning you."

He had seen me smell my glass. I was sure he missed the feeling of warm blood on his hands. Itatchi was recovering they called it. He who had done so much worse things than I who hadn't been deemed mentally fit.

"I'm sure you would, sure you would have taken your time too."

"Yes, it wouldn't have been swift. I would have made it so that death would be your only wish."

There was no denying or hiding that he was much more powerful than me. I had no chance had he wanted to take my life. My abilities and strength were a joke compared to his. I would be no match for him and nobody knew where I was.


	3. Folded

I knew a lot of people found power and strength appealing. The mere idea that he could hurt me so much I would be begging for death didn't do anything for me. He could break my mind and make me experience the worst mental trauma and he didn't even have to lift a finger.

It didn't do anything for me because I was hollow.

There was not much for me to fight over and there wasn't much life to defend.

I certainly didn't want to die. It wasn't anything like that. It was that I had had nothing to lose. I didn't fear pain nor did I fear death. It was why I was perfect in the field during the last part of the war and it was why I was forced to retire now. There was some bittersweet irony in it.

"I think I should be heading home soon."

It would have been rude of me to leave before I had even had one glass. He had invited me and I still had manners. It was also getting late and I didn't live in the best part of town.

"Your house isn't far away, is it?"

My house wasn't far away, that was right. It was one of my joys as a youngster. Living closer to Sasuke than Sakura.

"And it's not like you have anything to get up for in the morning."

He was brutally honest. He didn't have any filter in any shape or form much like I didn't early in life.

"I don't reside there anymore and I have breakfast training with my former team mates."

I tried to sound important, sticking my nose in the air using words I normally wouldn't bother with. It was also a lie. I couldn't remember the last time my old team had practiced last. It was so long ago I had started referring to them as my old team.

We weren't supposed to do this when we grew up. We were supposed to stick together forever. We were supposed to be the tightest, most close knit group. It was what Asuma wanted. We had failed ourselves and him.

"Oh, glad to hear that you're keeping in shape. Your body is your tool in hooking a man."

I shook my head taking a gulp of the wine I had been offered. I finished the glass quicker than planned.

"Not everything is about getting a man, I think it's you who's crazy about getting a woman to tend for you! You're barking up the wrong tree."

I got up from the couch. I didn't know why I had played along with his insults. I didn't know why I had come home with it. It had just helped confirm every reason why I didn't like him.

He was a brute bully.

A murderous one.

"Oh, god no!"

He seemed shocked. Shocked that I could even have such an outrageous idea. That I could speak something like out loud.

"Do you think that's why I invited you?"

I didn't know why he invited me. I knew I've had enough. I stomped through the living room and entered the hallway.

Itachi was hot in my trail and opened the door while I put on my sandals.

"I only invited you because you seem so sad! I didn't even want you here!"

I knew one of the reasons he invited me was because he was sad. He was the one who was lonely. He was the one who was out drinking alone seeking company and luring young blonds with him home to his giant tastefully furbished mansion. It wasn't me. I wasn't the sad lonely one!

I would rather be harassed by ghost and junkies than him.

"You're a dick, thank you for having me."

I reached out my hand about to shake his. When I heard a loud bang just outside I panicked. I didn't think and acted only on instinct. I grabbed his hand and pulled him close wrapping my other hand around him while screaming.

It had been ages since I had been this scared. I hadn't acted this unprofessional in ages. I wasn't supposed to scream at loud bangs. I was supposed to find out where they came from to detect any danger and be ready to protect myself. I was not trained to scream and hide. Then I didn't have any practice in fighting off ghost but I'm sure handing them their killer was the best way to go.

"I'm only using you as a human shield."

It was the only explanation I could give him. She was using him as a shield. Fuming Uchiha ghosts weren't interested in her she hoped if she could give them the man they wanted. The man who had given them their faith.

"Sure you are; do you want another glass of wine to calm down?"

I nodded grinding on his firm chest. I needed that glass of wine to calm my nerves. I had no idea why I had been so affected and almost crippled by a sound. I was out of practice and weak but it didn't complement forgetting everything you've ever learned becoming totally useless.

I kicked off my sandals and found my way back to the living room and couch. It seemed far better than being killed by angry ghost. Besides it was also cold outside. I hate being cold as much as I hate dying flowers, I think they're correlated.

"I'm sorry about the innocent in the hallway."

I didn't know what he felt about contact. He didn't strike me as the person who liked physical contact but he didn't seem like the kind of person to invite strange girls home from the bar either. Itachi was an enigma. Even more so to me after he returned and was able to tell his story. He was a… He was like the mystery seeds father used to give me. I never knew what I was going to see.

Perhaps not the best comparison, but to me they were the same.

I didn't like not knowing. Not normally. I liked being in control, being able to plan and know what was up ahead. I liked memorizing maps, I had a day planer which I used diligently when I had plans for the day and people to plan it with.

Itachi's mystery, surprises and secret titillated me. I knew some things; he wasn't a complete stranger. I knew him better than he knew me. It was actually he who was mostly in the blue out of us.

He hadn't taken any risks inviting me. It wasn't like I could harm him. I didn't possess the power. He surpasses my skill in every category.

I filled another glass of wine. Without another thought I brought it to my lips. I let it fill my mouth and pour down. It was a bitter wine, I didn't particularly like it. I blamed the first glass on my nerves, what possessed me to pour the remaining content of the bottle into my glass and finish it in the same matter I didn't know.

Within two minutes I had finished the bottle. Even before sitting down.

Itachi watched me in awe. He couldn't have seen a woman drink like that. Drink like a thirsty man dying to forget.

I dried my lips with the back of my hand. He followed me in filling up his glass and gulping it down. He bent his head back and threw the content of his glass his mouth. He held it all in there until he straightened his head. We locked eyes as he swallowed. Then another followed and I held out my wineglass for him to pour in and we finished out third drink.

I knew that it was enough for me at that point. I could feel my body heat up and the room becoming smaller, it started moving making me almost motion sick. Sick because I had been drinking too much for my own good.

I think we both knew why we were drinking so much so fast. There was only reason. It had been in the cards the whole night. It was almost like it had to happened and it did.

He made the first move plunging for my lips. The whole thing was hungry and desperate. It was like he was trying to eat me and I wanted to be eaten.

We were kissing with our mouth wide open. His hand was around my ponytail trying to free my hair while my hand was on the back of his head pulling him closer.

It was desperate and messy.

We knew it was bound to happen. It didn't flake when I had the chance. I didn't refuse him, I had responded to all his approaches no matter how insulting and immature. It wasn't a surprise.

"Fuck it,"

I muttered between kisses starting to work on his skirt. I could feel him opening the bow on my red wrap dress. I let go off him allowing my dress to soundlessly fall on the ground.

He didn't even look at me as I had expected him to do. If I expect him to turn left he goes right, if I expect him to go down he goes up.

He did on the other hand let me go. He turned his back to me and started moving towards what could only be assumed to be his bedroom. It was the only thing that made much sense in this scenario that in itself did not make any sense.

He turned on the lights before entering his bedroom. It couldn't have been the master bedroom. I had purposely accidently ended up in Sasuke's bedroom that one time he celebrated his birthday. This bedroom was smaller by far.

Itachi walked over to the bed stripping himself of his shirt first. Then followed his pants and he seemed to hesitate suddenly. It wasn't that he was shy about standing in his underwear or shy about possible removing it. He was looking down at the clothes he had disposed of.

"Seriously?"

He seemed to drop his contemplation of folding his clothes and with both hands wiggled out of his underwear leaving his but bare. He then jumped under the covers. It didn't seem like he did it because his nakedness bothered him. Both of the windows in the room was open and the room was rather cold.

Now he took the time to admire me in just my underwear and he seemed to like it. Not that his expression ever changed. It was in his eyes. There was a subtle change in them that I was only able to pick up because I had spent the evening with him.

He watched me pull the bra straps off my shoulders before reaching back to open it. It fell down on the ground not so soundlessly as my dress. Next I in the same motion wiggled out of my underwear and joined him under the covers for yet another all-consuming kiss.

XxxxxXXXxxxxX

I've decided in a probably but hopefully not annoying way to follow the original world with some modern objects, names and inventions. I really hope people won't mind too much?


	4. Bright and Early - Correct

There was no surprise in waking up alone the next morning. His sheets were soft and warm but there was nothing I wanted more than to get out of them.

The alarm read 08:26, it was late for me. I certainly had slept in but I would be home soon to have a shower and clean myself of last nights shame. How it all had happened and so fast was the biggest question I have ever come across.

It had thankfully been short. Itachi was to my utter surprise painfully a virgin. Or he had had been and he couldn't possible have had a worse time. Unless he came to knew I was actually a man or previously one. No chance of that.

" _Itachi, you're using a condom, right?"_

 _He must have skipped that awkward short introduction to safe sex we had in the Academy. How I had ended up beneath him without making sure he had wrapped up was beyond me. It wasn't as if I was so experienced myself, but I knew better than to jump into bed without using protection. Good thing was that I clearly wasn't in the risk of catching some horrid disease._

" _I'll just slip out before I come."_

 _He had slipped out right then and there with my help. He landed next to me with a thud and surprise in his eyes. Why did he have to look at me like that._

" _Fuck, you can knock someone up with pre-cum!"_

 _That was my father's teaching. I had a faint idea that me or one in my old team came to be just because of that. Father couldn't stress it enough and had embarrassingly told me several times and now I might be trapped because of that mistake._

" _Pre-cum doesn't contain sperm cells."_

 _Sure he knew his biology, I wouldn't have expected anything less from the daft genius next to me._

" _You're right, but it's a liquid and sometimes it pulls sperm cells with it, god you're so helpless."_

 _It was a sting to his underachieving in bed. I had not been satisfied, but I couldn't really hold it against him since he was so obviously clueless to what was going on._

" _Are you sure you're not the one desperate to start a family?"_

" _With you? Hmph."_

 _With that he pulled the covers under his head and promptly fell asleep. Well, that was what he wanted me to think so I let him lay there in peace._

Now my clothes were missing. Where he had taken them to only he knew, there was no reason for me to try and figure out where he had taken my clothes and why. I just praised my diet that we weren't the same size as I wrapped his covers to find him.

My first choice to start my man hunt was his adjoining bathroom. Fog covered the mirror, it was damp and hot inside the room. He had definitively been there and tried to wash away the shame from last night. Every attempt at that was futile.

Opening the door walking into the hallway I heard scuffling. It sounded like plates were put down on a table so my guess was that he was in the kitchen eating.

The house was a maze and last night's memory was foggy. Left or right? Ah, my memory was no help in this case and I decided to blindly follow the sounds and it got me right where I wanted.

The daylight was shining all too brightly through the curtains already. I could only blame it for noticing all too late.

"Sicko, where did you take my clothes. I really don't want to know why and what you did with them."

I pulled the covers tighter around me and praised myself happy I did. The man by the sink was not Itachi. From behind, in the sunlight I had mistaken Sasuke for Itachi. How could I have done that? They aren't even similar, I would have questioned the paternity in that case hadn't it been for their eyes.

We were both deer caught in each other's headlights. Hadn't we been interrupted I was sure three pairs of chopsticks would have slipped from Sasuke's motionless hand and down on the floor.

"I didn't know you drank wine, and you could have spared me one glass, Itachi. It's my bottle anyway."

Sakura came in to the kitchen reading the label on the bottle. It was a good wine, she liked it and contemplated having a glass with her meal. It was some security against Sasuke, pregnant ladies did not drunk, nor did the ones wanting to become pregnant. At this point in her life she would rather become an alcoholic than a mother.

Sakura had walked all the way into the kitchen before she noticed the white ghost in the other doorway. She did drop what she was holding in her hand. The bottle fell to the ground sending glass shards all over the room. I looked down at my leg to see the cover slowly turn red with my blood. I bent down pulling out the green piece of glass throwing it to the ground.

"I did not sign up for this… Itachi!"

I lifted the covers as I would do a dress walking out of the kitchen shouting for the wretched bastard who had put me in this situation. He could have left a note by the bed or something. He should have done something to warn me about the couple that was silently looking at my naked back as I stumbled helplessly looking for Itachi so that he could give me my clothes back and I swore to god that if he wasn't there before I counted to ten I would leave just wearing his covers.

I did not care who would see me on my way home, I did not care what they would think nor what they said. It could not been more humiliating than my last twelve hours. Nothing could be worse than my last twelve hours.

I heard some sound in the back of the house and started walking. Shuffling and kicking at the covers it was only a matter of time before I slipped and fell as long as I was. Thankfully both Sakura and Sasuke had moved to the doorway I had exited and was able to watch the show.

I was fumbling on the ground like a fish caught on land when Itachi came to see what the commotion was all about. His lips started tugging into a smile when he saw me struggling to get up without flashing my butt to the couple I knew was watching behind me.

"Where the fuck are my clothes you whoremonger?"

He bent down securely wrapping me up in the white covers again and helped me up.

"I figured you would borrow my clothes. Isn't it customary for the woman to wear the clothes of the man the morning after they had sex?"

Now three pairs of chopstick really did fall on the floor and I knew Sakura would most likely seven more bottles of wine if you kept placing them in her hands.

I just growled in response. This man was crazy and I couldn't even start to understand why I had allowed him to violate my body, and unprotected. I would make sure that I hadn't become pregnant from his daft actions.

"I need my clothes."

He was apparently holding them and handed them over to me.

"I… They were covered in beer so I thought I would wash them for you…"

His voice was low and mellow as he spoke looking down at his feet. No, I did not have time for this. I had the time but I did not want to deal with a sad Uchiha. It must be the worst thing ever to exist in this world.

"Thank you, I appreciate it."

I knew it wouldn't be enough to cheer him up. I remembered with horror how Sasuke was when he was sad as a child. How his lip would hang and refuse to talk to anyone for days when I had beaten him on a test or something in the Academy.

"Will you be joining us for breakfast."

It was Sakura who asked, she knew too how horrible a sulky Uchiha was because she was standing right next to the one she had agree to possible one day marry.

"No, she had practice with her old team."

It was Itachi who had lifted his head with a noticeable pout plastered on his lips.

"But Shikamaru is gone on a mission."

There were so many things I wanted to do to Sasuke right there and then. Pinch him, slap him tell him off for ruining my obvious excuse. I couldn't do that with Itachi right behind me and Sakura clasping her hands in front of me.

"I'll set the table for one extra!"

With that the scene was over and everyone went back to what they were doing before I had interrupted. Even Itachi sucked in his lips and joined the other couple in the kitchen. This was not what I had wanted to do with a mild hangover. It seemed like I had no other choice than to get dressed and join them. The least my clothes didn't stink of cigarettes and alcohol anymore, they smelled of sweet tangerines.


	5. Do We Have to Be Anything?

I place a third nori in my mouth despite being full from the miso soup. Itachi was the only one who weren't eating the same as us. He had found a cardboard box filled with chocolate cereal and filled a bowl with milk. He insisted I should try some but eating sweets for breakfast couldn't possibly be healthy. Not to mention what the sugar would do to my body.

I knew the two others had many questions. They were dipping in the surface still too shy to come out. It was all in their glances, the tone they addressed us in and the constantly evaluation of Itachi's and my reactions.

"I'm glad Shikamaru had a mission so that you could stay."

I knew Sasuke didn't really care if I was there or not. We didn't speak much anymore. Not since he had left, it had killed whatever childhood crush I ever had on him. It was foolish of me to ever have feelings for such an ill-equipped emotionally boy. I put my chopsticks down on the table. Itachi didn't seem to notice what was coming. He was finished drinking his chocolate milk from the bowl and was grabbing for some fish.

"You see, Itachi normally doesn't have friends over."

I wanted to ask Sakura to drop it. She probably had the romantic idea that I and Itachi would end up together finally making Sakura and I family in some sort of way. It wouldn't happen. I wish I could say it had been fun for a while and that would be it. I couldn't even say it had been fun, I would go home after a disappointing lay with the worry that it might have left me pregnant. I couldn't tell them that. I couldn't blurt something like that out at the breakfast table.

"I'm not his friend."

I wasn't. I didn't have the need for friends. I liked it best alone. I guess I had used up all my social interactions in my naïve teens.

"So you're his girlfriend?"

I would have expected better from Sasuke than to be prying into my love life like some school girl who heard a rumor that we had been seen kissing before school. It didn't suit him. Couching his neck so that he would come closer to look at me with big eyes and flaring nostrils.

Sakura had gone another direction. She sat back in her chair and gripped the table in anticipation. Itachi took no interest in our conversation filling yet another bowl with his sweet breakfast treat. This was getting absurd.

"Do we have to be anything?"

It was finally Itachi that spoke while eyeing a toy he found in his bowl. He was asking the right question. We didn't need to be anything. The man I had lost my virginity to, we were nothing. We didn't speak together after and we would never speak again. So it hadn't been anything. It was nothing more than what happened that night.

"One can indulge in enjoyment for one night and be done with it the next morning."

I let out a humorous snort earning me three pair of eyes directed towards me. Enjoyment might have been an overstatement from the oldest at the table. I would definitively not go that far. It had been interesting. I could give him that. Interesting.

"Sorry, don't mind me."

Sakura tried to talk to me with her facial gesture. I would have been up to a conversation hadn't I noticed that both the men were looking at us. They had no clue about women but they were smart enough to crack a code. I therefore ignored her and filled my cup of tea.

"Thank you for the meal, it was lovely."

I sent a smile towards Sakura who looked confused.

"You're welcome, my mother taught me as a child."

It was Itachi who responded and place a spoon in his mouth. The crunches from his food were the only thing heard. My mother had never been much of a chef. Father on the other hand had been decent, but I had never bothered to learn I had just been interested in eating. Now I had taken up the diet of the last inhabitant of the apartment.

Eyes keep flying between to two of us and I took a sip of the tea. It looked like it was going to be a nice day; I could hear birds' chirping outside and the sun was still shining bright. It made me wonder if I should actually go training.

Itachi grabbed my leg and pulled it close to him. If he had jerked it any harder I would be lying on my back sprawling on the floor for the second time this morning. He let a finger run down it looking at one specific point.

"What happened?"

Sakura started looking the other way. I wondered why I hadn't just healed it. I guess I was too busy trying to escape this place to notice and I couldn't really feel it. Sasuke was following his brother's finger as it was running down my foot.

"It was an accident, no biggie."

I should have told him about his bloody sheets. I should probably offer to wash them too like he had washed my clothes. Perhaps I wasn't as good as him doing laundry and cooking great food. That smug daft bastard and now he was caring for me too? Where would it stop?

"You're still bleeding."

It was just a single drop rolling down my leg. It was highly likely caused by his leg jerking. He wiped the blood from my leg with his thumb and got up. He went in to the kitchen without a word.

"We have breakfast here every weekend, Itachi likes hosting."

Sakura tried to lighten the mood.

"And once again, sorry for dropping the bottle."

I couldn't remember her apologizing in the first place but I had the common sense that she didn't go around breaking glass to injure people. Itachi came back with a bandage in his hand. It was majorly overreacting but who knows, maybe he was worried about getting my blood on his floor.

He wrapped the cloth around my leg with fast hands. It wasn't the first time he had done anything like this and the thought made me feel uncomfortable. I pulled my leg back as soon as he had secured it.

"Thank you, for everything. I think I must be going now."

He nodded and I almost felt bad about leaving him. It had just been something eerie about seeing him tend to my injury. The only thing I could think of was how many injuries he had caused that needed wrapping and coffins. It didn't feel right that such a man should be concerned with my petty scrape. It didn't feel right that such a man should be concerned about others at all. I wasn't over what he had done and I could never get used to it.

I got on my feet and nodded to Sakura and Sasuke before heading to the hallway. Itachi was right behind me. I found my sandals where I had thrown them last night and quickly placed them on my feet glad the ghosts were resting now. With the sun shining so bright over the empty compound it seemed so silly being afraid of ghosts.

"I know you don't like me, but I hope you've enjoyed yourself."

I could admit that there had been a few enjoyable moments saying no would have been a lie. It was better than going home alone.

"Most people are kind to me, to my face, but they are still scared of me."

I wasn't scared of him. He seemed like too much of a nice guy to ever harm anyone without a reason. That was what caused my blood to freeze that this man who was sweets loving up until recently virgin who loved to cook for his little brother and his girlfriend was also the brutal murderer who had slain his whole clan in one night only to be feared for years taking more lives in the mean time. He wasn't just one person.

"I… There aren't many, any, who… Not anyone is willing to spend time with me because of it. Well, beside Sasuke and Sakura. It gets lonely, but I'm sure you understand loneliness."

Stretching I reached his lips and kissed him. It was short, more like a peek.

"Thanks, for everything."

I opened the door and left him standing there touching his lips. He had tasted sweet like the chocolate he had been eating.


	6. It's Bad

I could smell the blood on his clothes and hear his soft steps long before he sat down next to me in front of Asuma's grave. He was the only one of our old team that had stayed the same, and I had a feeling he would have been the glue we were missing. We had drifted apart and I had broken every promise I had to him.

"You still go here too?"

He knew I often went here. He knew Asuma wasn't the only reason I went here anymore. We didn't speak about it. We never mentioned the fact that my father was dead. Sure, I wasn't selfish and I knew I wasn't the only one who had a close bond with my father. It didn't feel good that we never spoke about him.

"Only when something big is going on in my life."

He didn't speak a word. Earlier he would have sighed and asked me what it was. He would never ask because he was curious and wanted to know what it was. He would ask because he cared about me and that included the big things as well as the small things that I often wrongfully dubbed big things.

Now he was silent looking straight ahead on the name that had been a great deal in shaping us into who we were today.

"Shikamaru, what happened to us?"

I could hear him drop down on his butt from his previously crouched position. He must have noticed too. He must have known and felt that things were different.

"We grew up, some of us got responsibilities."

He was condescending in his tone, some of us had responsibilities. He was aiming to me. I was the one who had fallen off. He still had Choji, they still had each other. It was me who had staggered behind. Not mentally fit for mission. Being deemed mentally unfit for missions was the only thing making me mentally unfit.

"That's a cheap excuse and you know it, he would never have wanted this for us."

Shikamaru stretched his legs. I could see them from the corner of my eyes. I exhaled and placed my head on my knees. I had been sitting there for hours trying to figure out what he would say if he knew. I wondered if he would have scolded me for being so reckless or if he would be happy.

"You two let me go."

I could hear him sniffle behind me. There could be many reasons for that and I didn't read into it. It wasn't because it was the first time we had talked in weeks and it wasn't because we had our first serious conversation probably since the war had ended.

"You left me behind all alone."

"It isn't like that!"

It was a weak protest. I could feel him lay his hand on my shoulder. I instantly whimpered and he removed it. There was a distance between us and the void was becoming too large to jump, too large to travel through.

"If you feel that, perfectly honest in your heart you can say that again. Say that you haven't forsaken me."

There was silence. I couldn't only blame him, or them. Sure there was a lot of blame that could be pinned on me, but I had tried. I had tried for so long and at one point I had grown tired of their rejection and replaced them with the first man I could find.

It hadn't been the same.

No one could take their place in my life.

"I'm so alone and lost because losing them all was losing such a large chunk of myself and when my team left me behind…"

I hoped he was staying quiet because he knew I was right and he deserved to hear how deceiving they had been. They had forsaken me at my weakest and I didn't know if I could even forgive them for such betrayal.

"You've lost so much…"

"So the best remedy for that was losing my best friends, was that what you agreed?"

I had cut him short. I didn't want to hear his weak excuse. I was sure it was going to be a lie he told himself to feel better. I knew him too well to let him leave with a clean conscience.

"You never lost us."

"I did! When was the last time we laughed together?"

Again there was silence. Again he didn't have words for me. He didn't have anything to say because once again I was right.

I could hear him picking grass and tossing it back on the ground. I could smell it in the air. I missed working in the flower shop with father. I missed getting my hands dirty and I missed him. I couldn't plant another of him like I could with my plants. He was gone and I couldn't make him come back to me.

"We've been busy."

"Yes, you have responsibilities. I got that, must be magical. I'm just goofing around having such a great time every singled goddamned cursed day!"

I raised my voice at him. Asuma would be turning in his grave had he been able to hear us now.

"It wasn't what I meant."

"Then why did you say it?"

He had said it because he meant it, because he hadn't been thinking. He must have picture me having a ball left with nothing, nothing to fill my days with.

"Because I feel horrible! You're not the only one who's missing a friend."

"Thank you."

I muttered it weakly too looking at the gravestone of my former sensei. Perhaps there was hope for us still. Perhaps it wasn't too late and things could be as they once were.

"For what?"

"For not giving up."

I turned around and offered him a smile. His hair was hanging lose, he had a scratch above his eye and a bruise forming. Still what draw my attention were the wet streaks rolling down his cheeks and the weak smile he returned.

"No matter how hopeless you are, I'm never giving up on you, Ino Yamanaka."

"Thank you, because I'll be needing all the help I can get."

I would need him. There were some things I life you couldn't do alone. There were some tasks that required more than one soul and I was facing one.

"I'm going to open up the flower shop again."

It was time I started moving on, it was time I started earning money. I couldn't stop my life just because my father was gone. I had to keep pushing on and opening the flower shop was the right thing to do. Father would cry his eyes out had he known it was close and Asuma would have scolded me.

"That is great, we'll be there whenever you call."

I leaned back laying my head on his lap. I wanted things to go back to normal. How things had been in our teens before death and before we drifted apart by growing up.

"Temari is pestering me about everything, it's so bothersome."

I could only laugh at his mild complaint. I knew he meant every word of it because everything was a hassle to Shikamaru. Even pulling up the covers for the night was considered the most strenuous activity while he was performing it.

"Yes, she's looking for a house we can grow a family in. Like a family is something you can plant in empty bedrooms."

I giggled at the picture of Temari watering a pot of dirt in a crib while Shikamaru stood close by shaking his head having waken nightmares about well… Being awake.

"That's great, but is it what you want?"

He didn't seem ready to become a father. I had always pictured Shikamaru being an old father, too busy climbing the carrier ladder and too daft to even notice girls before starting his thirties. I had been wrong there.

"It'll still be some time. I think I'll be there in a year or two and then it'll be about a year before the child is born if we're lucky."

I imagined Shikamaru being a good father. Not outwardly patient but on the inside he would do everything for his children. Anything it took to keep his child satisfied, he would be willing to do anything and everything there was no stopping him. He would make time for his child, he would be supportive and pass on his knowledge.

He had always loved children even if he denied it. I had seen how he was with Mirai, one wouldn't say that she was growing up without some sort of father figure.

"Shikamaru?"

He hummed not being bothered to respond with words.

"I don't need my team because I'm opening the flower shop. I can perfectly well do that on my own. It's the reason why I'm here. The big thing…"

I decided that had Asuma known, he wouldn't have scolded me. He would have been happy for me. He would have been ready to help me no matter what and now I was asking Shikamaru and Choji to do the same. It was a lot to ask.

"I'm pregnant."

He looked down at me with wide eyes and mine met his. I could feel his whole body jump and his mouth formed into a wicked grin.

"That is great news! How did Sai take the news?"

I looked away on Asumas grave again hoping to every higher deity that this wouldn't change his view on me that he wouldn't push me away again.

"He didn't like it? He wasn't pleased? He dumped you? I'll snap that bastard's neck in a second!"

I shook my head looking everywhere but those brown eyes.

"He doesn't know."

Shikamaru's body relaxed again and I could notice that his mood had changed again, he was happy.

"You told me before you told him?"

Nodding my head wasn't lying. I hadn't told Sai. How could I possible tell him when he had proposed to me just a few days ago?

I had something good and safe going on with him. I didn't love him, but it was safe. He provided what I needed. I had panicked and I had broken everything.

"Why do you seem so, almost sad? Is there something wrong?"

I could feel my body cramping up, big tears streaming down my cheeks. I would be alone. I had been so stupid. I couldn't understand how I could have let it happened. He had hardly been inside of me before I had pushed him off. How could I even have let it go that far when there was Sai? When I was in a serious relationship. Sakura knew, Sasuke knew and now everything was wrong.

"He's not the father."

I closed my eyes as more tears poured down sliding into my hair. He wasn't the father. Not even Sai could be that forgiving that he was willing to look past that I had cheated on him and was pregnant with another man's child. Nobody could forgive that.

"Ino...?!"

It was the reprimanding voice he used when I had said or done something extremely stupid, shallow, and immature as a teen. It made me let out a little laugh that I was still capable of bringing that tone out of him.

He wanted to know who the father was. He wanted to know how bad it was, how big of a mistake I had done. He wanted to know who to deal with if he needed to force them to take some form of responsibility. I just lay there in his lap bawling. I turned my head seeking comfort in his sweater. I had screwed it up bad.

"It'll be fine, Ino. You can't be that far along, I'm sure Sakura would help you and never tell anyone."

I started crying harder at that. I couldn't possible make her remove the bastard child of her best friend and the brother of her boyfriend. Not that I would ever remove it. It had been enough death in my life and I couldn't remove my child. The idea hadn't even crossed my mind, I would have it no matter what.

"It's bad."

I bawled. I didn't know if he was able to hear it.

"It can't be that bad."

He ran his hand through my hair. I didn't even care that it was probably bloody and dirty. I would have to get used to everything being messy now.

"It's not like you're having a child with Sasuke Uchiha."

I started sobbing louder at that causing Shikamaru to lean further back trying to get a closer look of my face. I just grabbed a hold of his sweater and pulled him closer. Shaking my head for him to see. I had no words to spare for him as my whole body was tense and shaking.

"Good, so it's not the worst thing that could have happened. It's not an Uchiha."

"Why would that be the worst?"

I was surprised I was even able to form the words pulling and clutching on Shikamaru's clothes. I needed to know why he thought my predicament would be the worst. Why having a child with an Uchiha would be the worst.

"You know, there's only two of them. It's not like you could raise it on your own like Kurenai did after Asuma passed. You wouldn't have a say in the matter. The Uchiha's are important for Konoha and that means that the elders would have a say in everything. The child would be guarded and brought up as they saw fit. I honestly don't think you would have a say in anything and the child would probably be miserable. It would, you know, be the next and so far only new member of the clan that's more or less whipped out. There are only two of them left."

I had calmed down somewhere during his monologue. There was no way I was letting them have my child. It would be mine and mine alone. I would always keep it close and safe. I would bring it up as I saw fit and with a lot of love from its mother. I didn't want it to have the childhood its father had. I had seen what that does to a human being.

"There are two of them…

Ino?"

Shikamaru was always a bright kid when he focused and it was what had gotten him so far I adult life. Sometimes it was a hassle for his peers.

"You can't tell anyone, ever. I don't want that for my child."

He knew my concerns wouldn't be taken into consideration. He knew my job would end basically in the delivery room.

"What did you go out and do, oh sweet Ino?"

He wrapped his arms around my head pulling me closer as tears started flowing again. It was a good question, what had I done.

"You'll have to promise!"

I was sobbing again. I would find a way to hide who the father was. It could be Sai's. I had slept with him once before and I could do it once again one of the following days. I could let him take the blame. It would be wrong, I knew that. The child would possible look somewhat similar to him. It wasn't the worst idea looking away from the fact that it was utterly morally wrong and despicable.

"I'll do everything in my might."


	7. Part of it

I removed the hand he had placed over mine on the restaurant table. I wished the restaurant was more crowded and noisy so that he possible couldn't throw a scene and it would be harder to overhear us.

"I can't accept your proposal."

I couldn't go through with stringing him along. I couldn't make him raise a child not knowing he wasn't the father. It would possible be worse than removing the child all together.

"I don't know how to react when one has his proposal turned down?"

Once I had loved the idea of teaching him how to be a good boyfriend and I flattered myself with the idea that perhaps he would one day propose and I would teach him to be a good husband. Before the war it sounded like my dream. I could teach him and shape him just as I wanted him.

Now it seemed like a nightmare.

I needed someone with their own mind and opinions, someone with their own morals, codes and behavior. I didn't want to save and shape Sai anymore. I never loved him; I just loved what I could do with him and the fact that he seemed to be the only one interested in me. He still was, but my life and eventually faith had taken me elsewhere.

"It's not you, it's me."

This he knew. This was a textbook break up.

"So you are not just turning down my proposal, you're breaking up?"

I wish he could have looked sad, not just analyzing the situation.

"I… I cheated on you and I think breaking up is the best thing to do."

He took a sip of his coffee. He had read about situations like these, he knew you weren't supposed to be romantically involved with others when you were in a relationship. The rules were often unclear when dating, but he had asked her to be his and she had promptly and joyfully said yes.

"I don't mind that you cheated, with whom?"

He leaned forward watching me as if I was telling an interesting story about something that happened at work and I couldn't live with someone like that. I couldn't be with someone who didn't know how to behave to serious matters like these.

"We don't have to breakup for my sake."

I shook my head. We definitively needed to break up for every single reason known to me.

"It's not important with whom. I did it because I don't love you. I'm sorry, you'll make a great husband for someone else. It just can't be with me."

I threw a bill on the table and got up. I wanted him to fight for me. He was already willing to forgive my transgression but that wasn't because he loved me. He was willing to look past it because he didn't care that I had been with someone else.

He straightened his back and went back to drinking what was left of his coffee. He wouldn't stop me or fight with me because he didn't love me. He was looking for a female partner and I was one of the few that hadn't been taken. He hadn't been with me out of love, it had been availability and I couldn't be upset at him for it. It had been the same reason why I had been with him. Saying anything else would be lying and I had been lying to myself.

I made my way to the door pushing it open I almost slammed it in Sakura's face.

"Oh! Hey, Ino!"

Sasuke was standing behind her. They were probably here to have some sort of romantic dinner to celebrate their love and I had just dumped my first and only boyfriend. It was ironic.

"We haven't seen you since that morning at Itachi's."

Just like that Sai had gotten to know whom. I knew he had heard and I could see him nod. To him it made sense that I would break up with him to move on to someone better like Itachi.

I walked out on the street and closed the door behind me.

"Yeah… It was a onetime thing really. I don't have any reason to have any further contact with him."

It sounded too forced and constructed even for Sasuke who wrinkled his nose.

"Isn't the fact that you like him reason enough?"

Sakura grabbed for her boyfriend's arm proud at his response. I laughed, rather cruelly. Had we been first graders my dislike for him would be a perfect cover up for actually liking him. Truth was that I wasn't a child and as a grown up you dislike people because you don't like them.

"Surely you both know the effects of alcohol."

It was a good cover up. One could blame too much on being drunk in our time. It was too easy and explained everything.

"Besides, there's Sai. He knows what I've done and he's fine with it."

I hadn't technically told a lie. He knew and he had been fine with it. Sakura looked surprised. She had forgotten all about my relationship with Sai. Sasuke on the other hand had full control; I think he just wanted to see his brother happy with someone.

"But still, I would appreciate it if you didn't go around telling about it."

Sakura nodded. She assumed it must be embarrassing for Sai that his woman had been with someone else.

With a nod I left them having slumbered whatever good mood they might have had about their date. They had gone fishing and I didn't feel guilty that they hadn't caught what they were hoping to catch.

I strolled through the street taking every known short cut my fears were still confirmed. Actually getting to the breakup part had taken longer than expected. I still had history and good memories with Sai, I couldn't just spring it on him, then it had taken me some time to actually dare to break up with him.

Outside my flower shop two figures were standing waiting for me.

One outline bigger than the other, the smallest leaning towards the shop wall I knew just who it was before I could see them clearly. I greeted them with a smile and locked up the door. They followed me without a word.

"I've been watering and tending to the plants, somewhat…"

"But it's the dust."

Choji interrupted before I came too it and Shikamaru sneezed.

"Are you sure it's safe for you to be here?"

I let out a heartfelt chuckle. Always so concerned about everyone else. I knew that even without a father this child would grow up to be very well taken care of. I assumed that Shikamaru told him even before she had washed up or even changed into a dry sweater for that matter.

"I hope you'll always be here to take care of me."

It was a worry I've had ever since we were made a team that I would ever lose one of them and the worry hadn't gone away with the war. If anything it had made it worse.

"I'll always be here to take care of my friends. I'm sorry for neglecting you, I very much want to be part of your life."

He was looking at my stomach and I placed a hand over it. I wanted them to be part of everything, everything from cleaning dust to thinking of names.

It was decided the very next day after I ran into Shikamaru. Itachi wouldn't know a thing. He didn't need to, he had made it clear that he hadn't wanted a child and I wouldn't go against his wishes. It wasn't as I had wanted one either, but t was more difficult for me not to take responsibility.

"Too bad you don't know the father."

Shikamaru was looking away. The less who knew my secret was better.

"I mean, it could… it's…"

He stopped me from coming up with some lie, I was just stuttering from being put on the spot like that. How was I supposed to find out an excuse for not knowing who the father was? I wasn't that easy.

"I won't judge you. I'm actually looking forward to it, how far along are you?"

I had known I was pregnant when I walked home from breakfast. It was like a jolt shooting through my body and I could feel it. I could feel that a life had just been created and I had walked straight to Asuma's grave sitting there for hours until nightfall and when Shikamaru came.

I hadn't needed any test to confirm it, but I took one a few days later. It came out positive. Positive, all three of them. It was still early, it was still uncertain.

"Almost two weeks."

Choji nodded, he had hoped I would say months rather than months. I felt Shikamaru hit my leg with what appeared to be a broom.

"Are we cleaning or conversing?"


	8. Needs

I didn't know that the flower shop had been so dearly missed. The first week I had problems ordering enough flowers and when the word spread the next week that I had opened making even more people crowd the store and I had once again trouble getting enough flowers to sell.

I hadn't known I had been missed. I heard praises all day along the lines that the Yamanaka's had the best flowers, our fresh flowers had the best and longest life and that our potted plants had the prettiest and strongest bloom.

It was the encouragement and distraction I had needed. It would take over a month before the worst rush settled down.

I heard the bell chime and an all too known pink haired woman entered.

"So this is why I never see you anymore, I would almost call it a success."

There was a laugh as she made her way over to the counter looking at the customers gushing over the different colors of all the roses I had in stock.

"I would have brought flowers but that seemed redundant."

She looked through her purse and fished out a box of chocolates. I clasped my hands. I hadn't been able to eat lunch yet and chocolate was just what I needed.

"Thank you!"

I grabbed the chocolates and took one before I offered one to Sakura.

"Sure, I hadn't actually given them to you but sure."

I grabbed my second one as she placed her first in her mouth.

"I haven't had lunch."

She nodded looking at me. She didn't see anything out of the normal so she just brushed it off as me being hungry. I had to control myself after sticking the third piece in my mouth.

"I was actually coming to ask if you'll come for dinner next week?"

She had a coy smile. I knew why she was asking and who would be there.

"Don't say you have a date with Sai, I know. He told me right after I had run into you that day. Strange of you not to mention that you had broken up with him a minute earlier. You must have still been confused since you were still talking about him as he was your boyfriend."

I sighed and hoped someone was ready to purchase something. Nobody came to my rescue.

"I'll see you Saturday then, at seven."

Sakura picked up another chocolate and was out the store but not before stealing a bouquet of lilies.

Damn.

Who would have thought that time would fly by so past. I found myself dressed in a too tight dress in front of their gates. It wasn't dark just yet, if it had been I would have made Sakura meet my by the gate.

There was no turning back now. I placed my chap stick in my purse and entered. I almost turned around again when I saw him leaving his house at the same time.

"Ino."

It was a simple greeting and he ran up the stairs and entered without knocking. I decided to just follow before the door was slammed in my face. He was leaving the hallway as I entered.

"Oh! Itachi, you could have worn something nicer. You know Ino is coming."

It was Sakura speaking from what I assumed was the kitchen next door.

"I'm very well aware of that."

Sakura didn't pick up on that clue.

"I think it's so sweet that you like each other, you'll make a cute couple."

"She hates my guts, I'd rather you'd invite someone like… I don't know, someone my age, someone I do like?"

"But you two, you know… She doesn't hate you."

"They had sex and you expect them to get married?"

"Yeah, I tapped that and now I'm over that!"

I heard the ripples of a classic high five, Sasuke had definitively joined as I stood in the hallway eavesdropping pretending to check my makeup in case Itachi or someone else would stumble out and find me.

"Well, she's not that kind of girl. She doesn't just have sex, she had hardly ever slept with Sai, that was only once and the story about who she lost her virginity to. Ah, it's such a beautiful story…"

I had to rush into the kitchen before she could say another word. That story was not for her to tell, definitively not to Sasuke or Itachi. I didn't even know why I had told her, alcohol or something stronger must have impaired my better judgment.

"Oh! Ino!"

Sakura picked up a glass of wine and placed it in my hand before she went in for a hug which I returned embracing her with one hand.

"I had to check my makeup."

It was my explanation to Itachi who knew I had stayed behind but he knew I had been listening. He knew why I hadn't come. Sakura looked frustrated at the two of us and we were already back to that awful breakfast.

"It's even better than the one you had at Itachi's"

Sakura signaled to my glass and had some of her own.

"Oh no thank you."

I put my glass down on the kitchen counter with a smile I knew this was going too happened so I was prepared.

"Yeah, I'm doing this white month thing. I read it in a magazine while working."

We all knew what I used to do before when it was slow in the store. Read magazine and pick up on all sorts of crazy ideas.

"Come one, just one sip."

I shook my head. Not even one sip.

"Then two weeks would be wasted, it's been real hard. I haven't even been able to eat sugar."

I whined she couldn't argue that I wasn't serious when I had given up sugar.

"So that's why you gulfed down my chocolates like the pig you are, just now last week?"

I laughed hoping she would give up on having to force me to taste her wine.

"Sakura screwed up on the cooking, we're waiting on pizza."

Sasuke walked over to a covert taking down two whiskey tumblers pouring something in them. He gave one to Itachi and they walked into what must have been the living room. Sakura followed them so I did the same.

"Yeah, who knew thawing a turkey takes days?"

We all knew that Sakura. It was pretty logical but I didn't say anything.

"Pizza sounds good actually, better than turkey."

"So you eating clean allow you to eat junk food?"

Damned be that Sasuke, always memorizing everything just to throw it back in your face.

"Pizza is considered a vegetable in some countries."

It wasn't the worst kind of food but it was more often on my not eat than my do eat list and he probably knew that too. Since he apparently have been taking notes on me.

Itachi chuckled sipping on the tumbler Sasuke had handed him. Well, if this wasn't awkward.

I looked around in their living room. It was painted in a deep cherry color but heavy lighting prevented the room from getting dark. A few photographs were on the walls. One or two with both Sasuke and Sakura on them, the rest were of them alone. The couch was a black leather couch with two adorning chairs. What grabbed my interest was a baby piano in the far corner with their first picture as a team.

"You have a lovely home."

It hit me that I had never been to their house. Not even with Sakura and I being friends. We would always meet up outdoors and her whole dinner was suddenly even more suspicious.

"Thank you, Sasuke hates it. It's not fit for a child."

Sasuke didn't say anything but like his brother took another swig off the tumbler. He had made it perfectly clear that he demanded children more than he was asking for it. He was thinking about restoring the clan. I sat down in one of the chair and place a hand on my stomach.

The whole situation was tense. I was so close to Itachi, the father of the child he didn't know I was carrying. Sakura and possible even Sasuke were trying to set us up. Itachi on the other hand had no interest in me and knew I returned the favor.

"Oh, should I get you something to drink?"

Itachi was on the edge of his seat when he realized I had nothing to drink when I turned down the wine Sakura had given me.

"Water?"

"Water. Yeah, anyone else?"

"Even as a guest he's hosting."

Sakura didn't say it as to tell him to sit down, she would handle it. She made that clear when she placed her feet on the table.

Sasuke just shook his glass as a queue to get more. He wasn't getting up either.

"Somebody has to be a good host when you're lazy smocks."

I saw the smile on Itachi's face as he went back into the kitchen again.

"There was such a stressful day at the hospital and Sasuke was busy too."

I didn't really know what was happening in his life. I knew he hadn't been forgiven and cleared yet, I suspected he never would. So what I knew about his current profession was that he had been busy today and I didn't want to fill my head with needles information about his workplace. Had it been the gossip loving me I probably would have crawled over Sakura's lap to ask him and get the scoop.

"Sasuke does city maintenance, but he hopes to teach or something like it in the future."

It was like he had read my mind and said it just to annoy me. I didn't put it past him.

There was a ring on the door as Itachi gave me my water and I thanked him.

"I got it…"

The hosts seemed to have no plans in moving anytime soon. He even made sure his wallet was in his back pocket before he left. We heard some chatter and laughing before the door was slammed and then the two hungry wolves in the couch reacted.

Sakura put her feet down and Sasuke leaned forward just waiting for Itachi to place the three pizza boxes on the table.

"I'm so hungry!"

I could believe her, she was also leaning over the table, drooling now and attacked the first pizza as soon as Itachi put them down on the table. Sasuke promptly attacked the second pizza not having the time to wait for Sakura to be finished with the first. The sat back in the sofa again simultaneously, took a bite of their slice, sighed and rolled their eyes in fulfillment.

I chuckled that someone could be so in sync and Itachi rolled his eyes at the savages.

"Ino, do you want a plate?"

"Fork and knife too, please."

I would have gotten it myself had I known where it was all located. I was sure he could manage but I almost felt sorry for him being the guest left with all the responsibilities of the couple in the couch that was munching on their second slice.

Itachi handed me my plate and utensils. He was satisfied with just the plate himself. It was an old habit I had from my teenage days. If I ate the pizza with a fork and knife it would seem like more food and if I was eating with my team I could rest assured that the three male members had finished all the food when I had finished my first slice.

So proved to be the case today too. I had actually gotten a third slice when Itachi asked to have the last slice of the pizza we had ended up sharing. I didn't mind. Sakura and Sasuke had finished one each and she was scolding him for burping while being secretly impressed at the volume he had produced. The civilized guests tried to ignore them especially when Sakura gave up scolding him and let out a burp that rivaled his in volume.

Sasuke took the opportunity to mock scold her and soon a fight erupted in the couch and the violence was increasing from tickling to hair yanking.

"Want to go over to mine for some tea?"

Most of all I wanted to go home.

"If not I won't walk you to the gate and I can promise you that you don't want to stay here much longer."

I looked over at Sasuke and Sakura who had ended up on the floor rolling around. It didn't look like it would develop into something sexual as Sakura was slapping him on his sides.

Itachi held out five fingers counting down to zero and as he closed his thumb Sakura tried sending a knee to Sasuke's groin which he caught with angst riddled eyes and she kissed him. Bodies were soon intervened and I shot up from the chair I had been sitting in leaving my half eaten pizza slice.

"Tea it is then!"

Itachi had to step over them to get to the kitchen. They didn't seem to notice that we were leaving. That was what I wanted for myself, not violent play fights and make out sessions in front of friends and family.

I wanted someone so caught up in me that everything else disappeared.


	9. Heated

I kept close to Itachi as soon as we were out the door. He heard something fall and break before he slammed the door shut. I looked around to find everything dark. It had happened all too fast. I kept close to the deranged person in front of me. If anything were to happen I would definitively push him and run for my life.

"They're only in your mind if you let them. They're only real because you chose to let them be. I thought _you_ had a stronger mind than that."

My father brought me up believing in ghosts. I had to come back before the dark, if I was out vengeful ghost might get to me. There were all kinds of ghost and especially fathers without children were dangerous. They had lost their children to Death and was looking for another one to keep as their own. That man was a genius.

They were only real because I allowed them to exist in my mind because I had never questioned my father and his knowledge. They could still be real so I kept close to Itachi who kept changing up his pace to anyone me.

"If you're so desperate for human contact you could have laid down next to Sasuke and Sakura."

I couldn't allow him this win over me. Ghosts were real, even outside my head. They were real and angry because I was cavorting with the man who killed them. Ghosts who were victims of genocide must be the worst ghosts.

"You're interesting, you're so strong and capable, but somehow you're so helpless."

I stalled. He viewed me as helpless? Sure like a true woman I blatantly ignored the compliments when one bad thing had been said.

"I'm not helpless!"

I wasn't helpless. I had been at one point. I had been hopelessly lost. I hadn't been able to care for myself or anything around me.

"Yes, even the Elders think you're so helpless they won't make you work anymore, defeat, then you go and re-open the flower shop and that's vastly successful."

I didn't know if that was another compliment but it was probably his musings and just him thinking out loud.

"You must have such a frail mind, but your mind is what's supposed to be the strongest part of you."

He made my blood boil to the point where I didn't fear the ghost, I almost felt like one of them. Sure I had a weakened mental state but that had to do with emotions and not strength. I could still perform. I still had my physical strength and though I wouldn't win, not even in the closest I could do some damage on him.

Shrieking I found a kunai in my purse and tossed it straight ahead an aiming for his head. He did no effort in avoiding it. As soon as it hit we were by Sasuke's and Sakura's door again.

"Took you long enough."

I didn't want to be part of his games. I didn't want to play, as of right now I just wanted to be left alone. I wanted to be by myself and I wouldn't at all have tea with him.

"But it impressed me, you know, I was almost trying."

I didn't like his compliments that were always spiced with criticism or mockery. I didn't like it. He would have to make up his mind, he couldn't go around mixing good and bad.

"Ino!"

Sakura came running into the hallway interrupting our Mexican standoff. He was challenging me mentally and to me it was obvious. He wanted to get under my skin for whatever sick reason. He was playing mind games with me and he hadn't picked an easy contestant.

"Ino?!"

I couldn't be bothered to look at Sakura. I couldn't break eye contact with Itachi and let him win. I was going to put up a fight.

Black eyes suddenly turned red and it must have been the first time I saw them up close. He was hoping to scare me or make me back down. I knew too well what he could do to me but I didn't fear him. I was putting my trust in him not to do anything.

"Oh my god! Are you fucking insane, Itachi!"

Sakura turned her attention to Itachi and I could hear Sasuke rushing.

"Damn, Itachi! Why are you doing that to her?"

They had been too occupied with themselves to have noticed what was going on before Sakura walked in. They didn't know that his threat didn't hold any danger. I could see a blurred hand hit Itachi in the chest but he didn't bulge.

They calmed down somewhat looking between the two of us almost waiting for something to happen. The room was filled to the brim with suspense. Sasuke knew he had to do something to stop his brother and Sakura was worried what might happen to me.

"Do you want to know why I'm deemed mentally unfit? Because I refuse to a another mans life. After losing so much myself how could I possible make someone else go through the same? Everyone is loved, even the most estranged criminal."

He laughed a manic laugh, purely to intimidate me I suspected. He took three steps closer and stopped right in front of me looking down at me with spinning red eyes. He was ready and able to break me before anyone could do anything about it.

"So you're saying, that if we go back before the war. Before everything was known, I was loved?"

I wanted to take a step back. He was too close almost rubbing against me. I couldn't even have fitted my hand between us.

"Isn't it obvious? Hate doesn't make you forsake everything, hate doesn't make you give up on everything and make you put all your faith into one cause, one person. Hate doesn't make you strong, hate doesn't make you feel such drive and passion, not to that extent. Isn't it obvious?"

He didn't speak. Didn't move. Nobody moved.

"Isn't it obvious that your brother has always loved you?"

Sasuke shifted. He didn't know what was going on but he didn't want to be part of it. He didn't want it to escalate sucking another person into what was going on.

"He wanted to kill me."

I knew he had never admitted it, and probably would never. Having Sasuke wanting to kill him was what made him suffer, the worst hardship he had been through. Having the one closest to him, the one he had always loved and supported, wanting to kill him.

"Have you ever asked yourself for what reason?"

He never had. He had never considered the reason behind the need, behind the desire to have him killed. It was possible to kill out of love and to me it was obvious that Sasuke had wanted Itachi dead because of what he had done. Sure, but the reason wasn't revenge. It was to kill the man who was tainting ever good memory he had with his loving older brother, the one who had loved him and always cared for him.

His body almost dropped, his muscle no longer tense he took two steps back still being closer than original.

"You're good Yamanaka. Your mind really is the strongest part of you."

With that crimson eyes turned black again and Itachi left through the open door. Only the sounds of his foot steps were heard. I had given him something to think about. I looked over at a worrying Sakura and ghostly white Sasuke. He must not have realized this himself. That true reason behind his actions or he had been worried about Itachi for no reason.

I offered a reassuring smile. I was fine, there was nothing to worry about until I hit the floor.

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Thanks for the reviews, not trying to be **that** reader but it makes me want to update faster when I know people are enjoying what I'm reading. I read all your reviews several times, they make me so happy and I take them all to heart.

I also want to thank all those who follows and favorites.

 **Sweetlilly90** : Thank you so much for your review! All I can say is that it'll all be reviled in the next five or so chapters that I had ready. I love writing Sasuke and Sakura desperately trying to set up Ino and Itachi but failing desperately. I hope you enjoyed the chapter and thanks for the review.

 **Emoprincess21** : Now I almost feel bad about not actually make her go with him. I love Sasuke's and Sakura's desperate attempts that keep backfiring.

 _ **Possible spoilers so you don't have to read unless you want:**_

I still haven't decided if they aren't going to end up together. I was planning on the whole thing crashing and burning and that included them never actually having the baby. Now I'm starting to fall for "my" characters and I'm not sure if I'll be able to do that towards them. Thank you for yet another review.

Lmlsn (from chapter 6): Yes, I'm shamelessly doing another Ino gets pregnant story, but I hope to make it a little or very different.

Deathrosekitty: I've simply forgot to answer your review! I hope you're still with me. I did sneak in some lyrics. Should probably have informed about that, I guess you could say I should have known "Better than that."


	10. Never as it Seems

I was coming to it, hitting around me with open palms. It was soft, it smelled clean, sterile. I knew where I was, I just didn't remember going there.

"He could have done this, but I don't know why?"

It was Sasuke, I must assume they brought me to the hospital. It was a wise call all things considered.

"No, I don't think so. He had already left."

There was pacing in front of my bed. I couldn't have been out for long.

"It could still be him, but why?"

It hadn't been him. I don't think he would ever hurt me, not unless it was necessary. He wouldn't hurt me over a petty dispute if it even was that.

"I think there's something more between the two of them than we know."

Sakura kept quiet. I was afraid she knew. I was afraid she would tell Sasuke right there and then. She knew, she must know. I can only imagine she checked me when I had fainted.

"I just don't think he'd just casually do something rash to harm her."

Sakura couldn't believe that this had been caused by Itachi, not when she knew.

"What if he'll slip back into who he once was?"

Sakura jumped up from the chair or bed she was sitting on.

"He would never, you know that."

Sasuke knew that, but he had more than anyone felt just how much pain he was capable of causing. He might to some extent know much harm he could have caused me in those few minutes in their hallway.

"How do we know that? You don't know what he can do!"

He was angry now, angry that Sakura wasn't on his side, scared that his brother might be changing again. It had been rash and wrong trying to scare and provoke me in that matter.

"And what was her deal? She didn't even flinch; she looked him straight in the eyes!"

It had been because I trusted him. I trusted him not to cause me harm and that might have been a gamble. I didn't care.

"I know, it was insane. More insane than him. She didn't even move when he was all up in her face."

"It's like she wants to die."

Sakura sat down in whatever she had been sitting on again.

"You don't think?"

He didn't respond to her. They had somehow jumped to the crazy conclusion that I wanted to die, that I had wanted him to take my life. It was a hilarious plot they had spun up. That I had wanted for him to murder me in their hallway and that he might actually comply with it.

"No, she was just being stupid. She's never been the one to think things through."

Sasuke stopped moving I could feel him clutching the end of the bed.

"I just don't know why he would get so mad, what could have caused him to lose control?"

"I think he likes her."

Sakura giggled still caught up in the absurd idea that I would end up with Itachi making all of us some sort of family.

"No. He doesn't."

Sasuke was better at answering that than Sakura. He was Itachi's brother after all and the one closest to him.

"What?"

Sakura seemed surprised.

"Nothing bad about Ino, but she's just Ino. Do you think she'd be able to keep up with someone with his wits, knowledge and power? He'd be bored within the week, but I must admit I like the idea. Also, do you think he'd fall for the constant dieting, polished nails and face, kind of platinum blond girl?"

I contemplated pretending to wake up. I didn't know Sasuke viewed me in that way. I thought I had worked hard to prove that I was more than eating lean, that I wasn't afraid to get dirty. Neither was I dumb, I was even smarter than that bastard, well smarter in some subjects.

I didn't want to be the dumb blond. I had been the dumb blond all my life, always underestimated. I thought I had proven myself during the war. I had fought like everyone else, just as hard. Yet I was just the dumb girl who loved to paint my nails and brush my long hair.

"It's hard to imagine him with any girl."

Had the mood been lighter they would have laughed. Itachi wasn't one to just go out and strike up a conversation with a girl, let alone asking her out.

I groaned and mumbled slowly opening my eyes. A tear rolled down as soon as I tried opening my eyes, I blamed it on the light. It was bright, it was enough to make anyone cry.

"Ino, you're in the hospital."

I had figured out that much already. I could hear Sakura hanging over my bedside. I opened my eyes again and offered a smile.

"What happened? You just fainted."

She looked at Sasuke. This was what they had been waiting for. They had been waiting to hear my side of the story. They had wanted to hear if Itachi had done something.

"It must have been the stress. There's been so much to do at the shop."

It was a plausible explanation. The real one I thought too. It was the only thing that made sense. It had just been too much with his shenanigans on top of all the stress and long hours at the shop. I hadn't been eating as I should either. Especially not taking everything into consideration.

"You would tell us right, if Itachi did anything?"

I sighed and looked directly into the bright light. I hadn't noticed just how bright hospital lights were before. It made sense seeing the patients are exhibited in their bed for doctors, nurses and visitors.

"I'd have no problem ratting him out."

I would, had he actually done anything wrong, anything he shouldn't have.

Sasuke ruffled his hear letting out a deep breath he had been holding and walked out relieved. His biggest fear had been just that, a fear.

Sakura's caring smile changed as soon as Sasuke left and I hadn't expected anything. She raised her fist looking at it before putting it down again. Not even she could punch her pregnant best friend lying in a hospital bed, no matter how badly she wanted to punch me.

I could see it in her face, the wrinkled forehead of hers was intruding and her narrow paling lines forming where her normally pink lips were located gave me the idea just how much self-control she needed to calm her urges and anger down.

"And you've just broken up with Sai!"

It was in an angry whisper as she looked behind her shoulder and into the hallway. Sasuke was long gone to god knows where.

"It's not his."

Now she did hit me in the shoulder. I screamed and touched the sore spot. She had been holding back but it hadn't been a weak punch. She was flapping her hands in the air not sure what to do next. If it wasn't Sai's then she immediately remembered the breakfast we had shared where Itachi blurted out that we had slept together.

"No!"

I said it before she could ask and she calmed down putting her hands in her lap thinking. If not Sai or Itachi who could it has been?

"You've sure gotten around but if not…"

She was interrupted by a knock on the door and I would be forever thankful to whomever entered that door.

"I saw your name on the board and came straight away."

It was Shikamaru looking glad I seemed to be in good shaped. I assumed that he was back from a mission and was referring to the board in the reception room at the Hokage tower. It had the list of ninjas currently admitted in the hospital. I was surprised I was still in their system but once a ninja, always a ninja until death.

"I'm all good, just a bit of stress."

He walked over to my bed sitting down and grabbed my hand.

"You shouldn't be stressing, not now."

Sakura slowly started shaking her head. She couldn't believe it. If Sai or Itachi wasn't the father the only reasonable man was Shikamaru. It didn't make sense, but it did. Shikamaru was married and Temari was looking for a bigger house for when they had children, why would he be with Ino on the side then?

On the other hand it made total sense. Sakura for one had never understood why we hadn't ended up together. It didn't make sense to her. We had grown up with each other making us know each other in and out. Even knowing all our flaws and faults we still worshiped and adored each other. We would always love each other.

"It's all good."

I gave him a reassuring smile. He bent down and kissed my hand.

"I'm glad. I have to go fill out some reports but I'll come see you again if you're not out by then."

I nodded and he left looking at me.

"How could you?!"

She punched me once again in the same spot. Now I was sure it was going to bruise, if something else agitated her I was sure she would break a bone.

"It's not like that. Don't be crazy. I wouldn't."

Sakura wasn't so sure about that.


	11. Your Safety

"Why did Sakura give me a third degree at the hospital today? Asking me how things were going with Temari and how I felt about having children."

I had an idea and was surprised that it had taken her almost over a month. I decided to go with the tactic that always backfired. I refused to learn. How could he get mad when I was so cute and thoroughly innocent?

"I don't have the slightest idea."

We were lying on our backs gazing at the clouds. It was one what had come to be those rare weekends when we were all off at the same time.

I had decided to take action after I had fainted. I had hired a Genin that reminded me too much of myself. She was easily lost in day dreams but she eventually did her job and she was good with the customers. I liked her. I liked helping her with whatever I could.

"Ino?"

There was that tone again. I sat up leaning on my elbows. I hadn't said anything to Sakura. I was by all means innocent as always in every matter. I didn't know why things like this always happened to me when I had nothing to do with it.

"She might think we're having a child."

I embraced myself for the nagging and self pitying to come before the demands that I should tell her otherwise came. I expected him to complain about all the hassle and work I had made for him. He did neither.

"It wouldn't be the worst idea."

"Tell that to your wife!"

Shikamaru shifted but didn't speak. The house hunting was starting to put a strain on him and their relationship.

"Shikamaru?"

He hummed placing his arms behind his head.

"You're allowed to screw up once in a while too, you know that?"

He was perfection. Not only did he never make mistakes himself he often stopped innocent goofballs like me from doing our own mistakes. He couldn't be on top of everything all the time. I wanted to be there to ease his fall when the day finally came when Shikamaru Nara fucked up big time.

"Thank you, Ino, but I have my hands full with you."

"But it's allowed."

He reached out and grabbed my hand like he had done in the hospital. I looked over at him who was looking mindlessly up into the sky. I wondered if he still looked for shapes in the clouds like we did as children.

"I'm glad to have you."

It could have been either one of us who spoke but I was glad it had been him. He seemed so overworked. He seemed so tired the few times saw I him. Exhausted he came back from his missions and drained he quickly left for another. I could hardly imagine that there was enough work for him to be so busy.

I cherished moments like these who were all too rare.

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Blubb: Then I hope you enjoyed this short chapter too! I'm glad you enjoyed the way I'm portraying Ino, I wanted to do something different and often times I fail doing that. The explanation to why the flower shop and her clan comes later. I was unsure what I wanted to have happened with them so I just put it off. It's in the making right now and will come in chapter 15 or somewhere around there.

No need to excuse your good spelling and grammar, I can assure you that my German is so much worse. Thank you for your lengthy review, I really appreciate it!

Sweetlilly90: I'm trying to make Itachi a rather complicated person, so thank you for noticing that. He's sort of a wild card, you never know what he's up to and why. Sometimes it's a reason for his actions and sometimes he's just being a douche. Sasuke has several reasons for saying what he did, but that'll come later. Sakura jumping the gun thinking it's Shikamaru who's the father was a low blow, but again Ino is flawed and she's done some wicked things so I can't judge Sakura too hard. I'm glad Ino opened her flower shop again too, it'll become vital for the story further on. Thank you for yet another decent review!

Emoprincess21: Yes! I know! It makes me sooo upset! But then again I'm also kind of glad they didn't end up better, but the pairings just seem random and rushed. All I say that you'll have your questions answered in a few chapters. Thank you for reviewing.

EMG


	12. Crazy Good

I was glad my apron was still big and shapeless as I had hopelessly bought clothes in two sizes up. They were intended for those who were two sizes bigger than me and not just those who had a large stomach. I dreaded the maternity corner of the store. I wasn't ready for anyone finding out just yet.

Shikamaru was still set on taking the blame to put it that way. Why did didn't know. It was too much and from what I knew about Temari she would not agree.

I smiled as my help came rushing in only five minutes late today. I had already had my first costumer leave happy. Thankfully we weren't a breakfast restaurants and mornings could be slow.

"Umeko!"

I called out shortly after she had run to the back. She appeared shortly looking flustered. Her green apron was hanging lose around her neck as she tried finding the threads to knot it around her thin, thin waist. I had never been so envious before.

"It's the last time I'm late, I promise! Please don't fire me, you know how it is! It's the only way I can afford supplies with mother gone and…"

Hadn't I stopped her with her banter she would have pushed on and on and then further on.

"We're receiving some yellow daisies today, could you save me some?"

She nodded slowly breathing calming down and she was finally able to find the strings on her apron.

"Should be here around noon, and I don't mind you being a little late. Morning practices?"

She nodded and went to the back again to change into more comfortable shoes. I went back to singing while making another bouquet.

"I always forget you were a ninja it's so cool."

"Once a ninja, always a ninja."

I tossed a withered flower on her and she caught it just as it touched her face.

"You must be crazy good!"

There was awe in her voice and it almost made me feel impressed that it took so little to amaze her. Youngsters were so easily overwhelmed.

"No, it's you who haven't gotten as good yet."

"Sure, maybe."

"But I know you will."

She took a walk around trying to decide which flowers needed water.

"It's just…"

I knew there would come an if, but or just. She walked over to the counter huffing as she crushed her elbows on the counter head resting on her hands.

"There's a boy problem and I've heard you're good with those."

I looked down at her. She was threading on thin ice, it sounded almost like she was calling me easy, a slut. She was too innocent for such, she would never accuse me of something like that and I was her boss.

"I think they are all so annoying!"

Gosh, had only I had the same opinion at her age.

"That's not a problem, that's a fact."

She pulled some on her long red hair and rolled her brown eyes sinking closer to the counter.

"You have that guy over all the time, the sexy one."

That was very descriptive and I laughed thinking Shikamaru was the one who came around most often. The sexy one, Shikamaru.

"Hey, don't drool on the counter. He's a married man."

She sighed and went over to water the plants that had dried up since last morning. She seemed to be thinking too much about the sexy one and she seemed almost too distracted. Still I had no choice but to leave her alone around noon.

I walked over to a tea shop nearby to find Shikamaru already slouching in a chair outside. I walked up to him from behind, bending down I whispered into his ear:  
"The sexy one!"

Either he was surprised at the whisper or it was his new nickname but he made a quick jump tossing his hands around as if he was swatting away a bug and he hit me square in the face.

"What was that for?"

I sat down on the free chair wrinkling my nose trying to get rid of the burn.

"That's what the teens call you now a day."

"Shit, your nose is bleeding!"

I took the paper he handed me pushing it up my nose bending my head back to stop the bleeding.

"The sexy one?"

The question in his face was adorable. He sounded perplex that someone could even consider him to be a looker.

"You are quite good looking for someone who has pierced ears, that's a big no."

I had yelled at him the first time I saw he had pierced his ears. It was so, no. Boys weren't supposed to have pierced ears. I remember one, the right I think, getting horrible infected and smelling like a dead pig. Men on the other hand, men could have pierced ears.

I could feel him shift his attention elsewhere. I was currently looking at a duck shaped cloud, rubber ducky.

"What is it, _the sexy one?_ "

I whispered his new name as sensually as I could manage and that was pretty sensual and sexy if I was allowed to comment on it myself.

I figured I must have stopped bleeding corrected my posture only to notice that Sasuke had stopped by our table, Itachi standing close by leaning against a lamp post.

"Oh, he was that sexy…"

Sasuke commented on the bloody tissue in my nose. Not thinking I ripped it out causing my nose to bleed again. I could see Itachi shake his head at my stupidity.

"It's his new nickname, you see: All the teenage girls call him the sexy one."

"Well, I knew I had to give up the title someday… but to someone my same age and Shikamaru none the less."

I was trying to heal my nose instead of having it keep bleeding and I could see Itachi nodding at my actions. That was the right way for me to deal with a nosebleed.

"Do you want to join us? We could find a bigger table."

Sasuke shook his head.

"We have an errand so we'll have to go."

"Well, tell Sakura thanks for the outstanding help she gave me at the hospital."

"I will…"

There was an odd look on his face telling me he was left out in the dark and now he knew he was out of the loop and Sakura was in the loop and he would propose they needed to share their loop since they were a couple and soon Sasuke would know and then there was only a matter of time before Itachi knew and they would all hassle me.

I reached over the table and grabbed Shikamaru's glass of water.

I was becoming paranoid.

"What was that about?"

I looked behind me only to see that they had disappeared.

"Sakura kept digging and I thought I would let her find her bone."

I shook my head. He would not take the blame for me. That meant that he'd probably end up divorced and raising the child of someone else. We had run through it several times him saying he would step up and me denying it.

"I just… Ah, I don't want people to know. I should go in hiding."

"Soon, you're getting fat."

That smug bastard. He was doing it to get a rise out of me. We both knew it wasn't fat, he was only trying to annoy me and actually give me a heads up. With my luck and thin frame I knew, I just knew I would start showing early.

"You're getting fat!"

He wasn't, he was the sexy one. Teens are crazy.

"Oh, yeah, Ino. You're getting bigger."

There the third member of their party arrived. They knew nothing. I wasn't showing that much, not under all my clothes.

"You brought us flowers too?"

Yes, yellow for friendship.

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In case anyone is _**missing Itachi**_ , or more of him, you'll get _**a solid dose next chapter**_. No worries, I got you covered!

Emoprincess21: I intended it to be a one chapter story, but it went as it always does so I decided to update some. Neji is already in the mix as a minor unnamed character. More like a mystery, running gag that nobody has noticed, or commented yet. Sadly he's a goner though. I'm glad you're enjoying the shikaIno parts, enjoy them while they last…

Guest: Thank you for your review and it's about time you realize that Ino is life, and life is Ino. No, maybe not. I'm glad you're enjoying bitter Ino. I'll blow the bitter, salty angst meter in a few chapter, hope you'll enjoy that and that you enjoyed this chapter.

Blubb: I never actually set a pairing for this story. I intended for it to just be the first chapter and there's definitively no pairing there. I'm too starting to love these ShikaIno moments more than I should. She's happy for now, but will it stay that way? It felt wrong writing anything else in this chapter, like it would spoil the moment. I've got five chapters saved up after this and with such amazing reviews how can I not update often?


	13. Lost

It was raining outside so business was slower than usual. We both sat behind the counter flipping through each our magazine.

"What's your dream guy like?"

Umeko looked over at me desperately hoping I would answer her to quench her curiosity. I knew she had noticed I was pregnant, but she hadn't spoken a word of it since I was single.

"Blond, dumb and rich."

"You can't say yourself!"

She was dragging her words trying to sound annoyed but it trickled through that she considered her joke to be hilarious herself.

"I'm not rich per say."

Just richer than most my age, clan leader with my own house and business all debt free. So perhaps well off?

"Come one, Ino, you have it all. All but a man, so what's your dream man?"

I used to write and update on my dream man criteria when I kept a journal. In the academy I listed all of Sasuke's traits, good and bad. As things moved one I started looking for other qualities making the list longer and harder to fulfill.

"When you're my age every man would suffice for all the good ones are single."

"You know Kiba? He's single."

I scuffed flipping through the pages I had already read.

"Honey, he'll stay single. Mark my words."

There was no way any girl would tie the wild dog man down anytime soon. If there was one truly smart man in town who worshiped his bachelor life and title as war hero it was Kiba and he used it for all it was worth.

"You're the kind who likes them tall and dark, a mystery and in need to repair. A tortured soul with eyes you can go swimming in. Rugged, troubled but you know he's capable of loving you because you love him."

I moved a hand over to my heart. I could never be able to love him. That is why he would never care for me because I had shut him down and judged him without knowing who he was. I judged him before I knew him and he must have known it. He must have felt that I had shut him off and I was happy I had done.

"Yeah, I knew you used to like Sasuke and that you were with Sai. There are rumors and legends about you in the Academy and among Ninjas."

I guessed rather that she had been snooping around to find information on me. She was a clever girl and had done well. I was going to be close to her and I would spend many hours with her so she should be grasping for any piece of information on me.

"I'm glad you trusted me with this job."

I turned around and gave her a smile noticing the weather clearing outside as it had been predicted it would. That meant that the streets would come to life and there would finally be people in the shop again.

I heard the bell chime and I put my magazine away.

"Talking about dark and troubled.

\- Hey, welcome to Yanamaka's flower shop. Are you looking for anything special today, sir?"

He walked over to the counter slightly smiling.

"Yes, I think there's something Miss Yamanaka can help me with."

I sighed and walked around assuming he wanted me to pick out some flowers for Sasuke and Sakura.

He looked at me with eyes that bleed into red. He was going to pull this show again.

"Itachi, have you gone insane?"

It was a nonchalant question. I used his name to hopefully calm Umeko down giving of the idea that I knew him personally.

"I was going to ask you the same."

With a flash he had a knife next to my neck. I felt the cold metal against my skin. It was just below my ribs before I could react. He didn't say anything; he just stood looking at me. Looking at my swollen belly and then he left.

I ran after him insisting, pleading him to stop he finally did turning around red angry eyes flashed and it almost frightened me now that he was so clearly upset with me.

"Just tell me one thing! One thing, did you plan on ever telling me?!"

We were causing a scene. Some stood frozen and a few even ran at the sight of the enraged Uchiha heir being chased by the seemingly enlarged Yanamaka heiress.

I understood them perfectly. I would have fled too, especially now.

"No."

It looked like he was going to say something with his mouth hanging open but he turned around abruptly. Shit.

I ran back to the store to find a shock damage Umeko trying to help some customers.

"Can you take care of things here, something came up. Just lock up if I'm not back."

She nodded. She didn't know the closing routines but she could lock a door.

I didn't move as fast as I used to anymore. I hoped he had stormed off to go home so that I would know where to find him. He wasn't supposed to find out. He wasn't supposed to know. He didn't even want this. He had told me. He had laughed at the idea and deemed it beneath him to have a child with someone like me.

The child was supposed to be born before he saw me again and then… I didn't know. I had no idea how to hide a child from its father. Hiding the pregnancy from the father hadn't turned out as planned so I wouldn't know what it was like to hide a child once it was outside of me.

I could tell him it's Sai's or even Shikamaru's. He had offered. He had volunteered. Would Itachi even believe me? There was no way I would let my mistake end a marriage and lock Shikamaru to me. So there was that.

I met Sasuke by the gate who looked shocked that I had gained weight. I held out my hand signaling I didn't want to hear whatever he was going to say. I wasn't interested in pleasant greetings or comments on my body.

I did hear him turn around and run back inside. Most likely to inform Sakura what he had just seen.

Why had the sun have to come out? I was probably sweating when I paused in front of his door. I didn't even know if he was home. If he weren't I would have to wait for him. We had to talk things through.

I knocked softly and entered promptly. I kicked off my shoes and heard talking in the far back. The room that was always locked up. The room where he had killed his parents.

"Yes, I know it's not what we planned.

It wasn't how I had imagined it either.

She's not necessarily bad blood, it's not a bad clan though it might be weak and petty now. They will grow under her leadership, especially now.

What do you mean you disapprove?"

He was having a conversation with himself? Or was he asking someone questions or were someone asking him questions? It couldn't be just one person in there. I didn't hear or feel anyone else. I could only sense him.

"Please, father! It wasn't what I wanted either! Please, I beg off you to forgive me!"

I ran. I ran out of the house and started knocking on the door hoping Sasuke would come quick and he did.

"He's at it again, isn't he?"

I got the feeling that this had happened before. I noticed Sasuke picking up a knife hiding it behind his back before he ran and I took off after him.

"Itachi!"

Sasuke ripped open the door with a heavy heart. This room was special and held a specific meaning to him as well. Itachi was on the floor dressed in a kimono with his clan's crest on it. He was crying, wallowing desperately and in panic.

"Father does not approve!"

Sasuke grabbed his head pulling him up and forcing him to look him in the eyes. It was an intense minute that flew by.

"He doesn't like it, he doesn't like me. I'll never be good enough for them."

Itachi tried to break away from Sasuke scrambling for something on the empty floor.

"Itachi, it's all in your head. Calm down."

"No, no. Mother is disappointed. She even cried."

I didn't know what was happening, but it had me worried. There was a certain despair flooding the room. The somber look on Sasuke's face and the desperation flooding in Itachi's eyes. The man who never showed anything to anyone. The man with a stone face.

His mouth was hanging open now and some of his hair had gotten lose from its tie. He must have gotten a bad splinter from the floor because when he touched his cheek a small trail of blood was left and he struggled to focus.

"They aren't here, are they?"

"No, but it is fine, Itachi. We will mange we, just the two of us."

His eyes immediately shot towards me. There wouldn't be just the two of them anymore. His eyes started flickering back and from black to red and Sasuke moved his hands to his shoulders closing his own red eyes as a safety measure. Itachi's head dropped again.

"I killed them, didn't I?"

I knew what this was. I had seen it before so many times. I would have been a fool thinking a mere boy could just kill off his family without being tainted and scarred for life. I had been a fool.

I, like everybody else had put too much faith in Itachi. There was no excuse. I had expected him to go through such a mind breaking, heart wrenching incident and move past it. It would stay with him his whole life. You couldn't heal from the past he have had.

"It's okay, I know."

He shook his head. It was clear that he was somewhat conscious of present day and that he hadn't slipped too far into the dark side of his mind. He was still with us but he was just realizing what his imagination was and what real life was.

"I couldn't kill you. I was selfish, I couldn't. Please forgive me, brother, for handing you such a hard life. I couldn't kill you."

Sasuke got up on his feet and helped Itachi up who instantly clutched his brother. Sasuke was surprised but returned the peculiar hug.

"It would have been better for you, but I was selfish."

"No, I'm glad you didn't. Had you… had you, I wouldn't have been here with you now."

I don't know if it was because I so easily picked up emotions but I couldn't stay anymore. Not when he started crying and the hollow sounds bounced off the empty walls. It was here he killed them, it was here everything had gone wrong for him. It was here he had destroyed his beloved little brother.

I grasped my shirt above my heart like I had done not even an hour ago thinking about him and I ran out. I could not be there anymore. I couldn't, it was torture. It was if I could feel every emotion running through him and I had never experienced anything as strong. It was confusion, anger, deceit and the sadness. That all consuming sadness the flowed like ice through you blood making it hard to breathe, hard to move, hard to exist. I hadn't felt anything like it since my father passed but not even then it was this strong.

I fell down on my knees as soon as I had left the house and those feelings left me. Not entirely but they weren't as powerful. They were still grabbing a hold of me. I had never pitied a man so much. I had always thought Sasuke was the biggest victim of the massacre, but it had been he who had gone through with it, it was he who had done it against his wishes.

And he had left his brother thinking it was selfish of him.

Tears were dripping down on the porch I had landed on. This would be the father of my child. This was the baggage he was carrying. This was some of it, the one thing we knew all about through Sasuke. We didn't know all he had been through and I didn't want to know either. I didn't want to know any of it because I didn't think I could have handled it.

"Ino!"

Sakura was still in her scrubs and dropped something when she started running. Perhaps she could have felt something too as she came through the gates. Perhaps it was like a black, dark blanket over the whole compound.

"What is it?"

She looked down at the fresh drops of tears that had made the recently dry porch wet again. She bent down and grabbed my hand opening it. I hadn't realized it myself, I had been making fists. Blood was running down my hands too dropping down on the porch to join my tears.

"Ino, what happened?"

I seemed otherwise healthy so she had ruled out physical abuse or trauma of any sort. Then there could only be one other thing. She grabbed me and pulled me into an embrace.

"Did he reject you?"

A rejection seemed so trivial at the moment, even with the child I was carrying. I could only weakly shake my head.

"He's resting now."

It was Sasuke and he looked down at us. He could probably remember the first incident himself. How scared and helpless he had been himself. He hadn't known what to do but he knew that he had to do something.

"Did he have another episode?"

I could feel Sakura pull me even closer. She had about the same reactions as I was having but not as strong. She was never able to take part and help. It was too overpowering even for her and she left Sasuke to take care of it.

I looked at his hands to find them as pale as they always were. He hadn't had to use the knife he had brought. He hadn't hurt Itachi.

"Why don't we make some tea, I have a feeling we have to talk, Ino."

I nodded and got up on weak legs. Sakura wrapped a hand around my shoulders knowing just what I needed.

Support.

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Oh, the angst 3

Emoprincess21: You're correct! When they pass their Genin exam or something like that. So it was a musing that Ino still viewed him as a boy then but now they're grown up. A lost Sasuke is always comical to me, I can just imagine the faces he would make. Oh it'll haunt him through the story, _the sexy one!_ I'm certain Itachi was having more fun watching Ino screw up.


	14. Lines

The kettle had been screaming for a few minutes before Sasuke got off the stool he had been sitting on. He removed it from the heat and filled the tea pot he had prepared. Sakura was sitting opposite to me on the other side of the table. We hadn't spoken a word.

What did one say after something like that?

Sakura grabbed my hand opening it again to view the damage. It wasn't bothering me. I hadn't even notice and now it left a simple soft burn reminding me that this was real and had happened.

"I'll heal it."

I pulled my hand away from her smudging some of the blood on my shirt as I held them close to my stomach. I had a feeling I wouldn't make it back to the flower shop today, maybe not even tomorrow.

Panic was still present in me and every sound and movement was investigated further. The kettle had almost made me run. It was what my instincts were telling me, flee. I was in no condition to fight and the stakes had gotten too high.

I needed the dull pain in my hand and looked down at it. The blood was drying up but four crescent marks were still fresh colored vibrant red.

A fever heart was what my father said I had. My emotions were always strong and running rampant as a child. I had no means to control them and he had hoped it would become better once I had aged. That I would learn to calm myself down and collect my feelings. He had a hope that I would once become stoic and rock solid as him.

Things had gotten worse when I entered my teens. My feeling had gotten more complicated and complex. I didn't always understand them making me act out against family, friends and especially my team. I don't want to mention boys.

Now I often felt like I didn't have feelings. Now I often felt empty and I often wonder if I was like my father. That he had been the same before mother. That she had taken away his feelings when she left. I didn't even know if she left. I don't know anything about her. I didn't bother. I had my father and he had always been enough for me.

"Ino, are you okay?"

Sakura asked placing a strain of stray hair behind my ear leaving her stool to reach me. Sasuke sat down again after having put the kettle and tea cups down.

"It's an Uchiha?"

Sasuke took to pouring us tea and Sakura opened her mouth shocked at how direct her boyfriend had been.

"You can't ask such a personal question!"

I understood where he came from and why he would want to know. It was a personal interest for him to know if my child shared his genes. He was the only one interested in building back his clan that was capable of it.

If I should hide the paternity now was my chance. I could blame it on two other men. Sakura was already convinced that it was Shikamaru who was the father. I had the chance to lie and Sakura had bought me time.

I grabbed my tea cup avoiding the question.

"It's Shikamaru, isn't it? But he's married."

It seemed perfectly fine for Sakura to ask the same personal question. I didn't answer now either. Sasuke slammed his fist on the kitchen table making me jump and start crying again only convincing the couple further that it was Shikamaru who was the father.

"No!"

Or so I had believed.

"It's Itachi's."

All I could do was to nod at Sasuke's words. He had been there, he had heard what Itachi had been messing about. I didn't know what he had been told after I had left.

"I've had a hunch ever since that breakfast and I've known since the first time I saw you after."

He had known for over almost three months and he hadn't told a single soul. I wish I had been in my right mind to thank him for keeping my secret.

There was silence and tea drinking. There were too many uncertainties and questions circling around, the room was too crowded to just pick one question and ask it.

"I guess this finally makes us sisters, almost."

Sakura grabbed my hand again shortly after my last sobs had died out. She didn't take my hand to heal it this time. She took it to provide comfort and support.

"I think it's a good match, ability and gene wise."

Sasuke was only thinking about the next line of his clan. I had to give a little laugh that he was so caught up in the child that he didn't think about the mess that surrounded it.

"Not that it's important, and changes anything, well it does, but not when it comes to you know, family, loving it and such."

Sasuke, those years he had a family, he wasn't surrounded by love. Sure he was loved by his parents but this was seldom expressed. The Uchiha clan had a distinctive hierarchy and once you were born there was only one way to rise and matter, by being good at what you did or by holding a prominent position. It was all about blood and power.

He was beneath his brother and by gaining more strength and power he had wished to surpass him and become number one. He was too caught up in his brother to notice that there was even less love shared for number one.

I had grown up with love from my father, always being told my opinions matter and that the most important thing in life was that I was happy and pleased with who I am. I wasn't, not now but I was hoping it would come with time.

"I'm calling a clan meeting, and you're in, Ino."

Sasuke sipped his tea. There hadn't been a meeting in years. There hadn't been anyone to meet or anything to discuss. Itachi and he had agreed on how to split the property and money. Sasuke had been given everything for the main house. It wasn't anything to think about.

"I don't care what Itachi thinks. This child is an Uchiha and he'll be raised as one."

I sat my tea cup down. This was what I had feared, the one thing I had dreaded and the one thing that had caused me to make my choices. It was all down the drain now, but I would put up a fight.

"No."

Sasuke took put down his cup rather abruptly spilling some tea and startling Sakura in the process.

"And what do you mean he?"

"Powerful Uchiha's always have boys."

I laughed at him. That wasn't how biology works. Sure there had been a surplus of males in the clan but that didn't mean that I was having a boy.

"The first born in your clan is also always male, well almost."

I scuffed. I could not believe him but I assumed this was only the start of what I would have to suffer through.

"I don't care what it is, I just care that it's healthy."

It was Sasuke's turn to scoff and look away from me. He saw something out the window, he slipped down from the stool and walked out in the hallway before he returned with a somber look upon his face avoiding everyone present.

"He's?"

Sakura was doing a flicking motion in the air with her finger. Sasuke didn't look at her but he nodded.

"He sometimes turns light on and off after his episodes."

"Once for everyone he killed."

Sasuke chimed in as an explanation to an answer to a question that hadn't been asked.

"He's probably tired. He didn't sleep for long."

Sakura looked for something, probably for the groceries that was still out on the street where she had dropped them.

The argument was still hanging in the air and I for one didn't want to pick up where I had left it off. I just wanted to go home, maybe have a hot bath before having a solid nap before dinner. I was starving, but I was too tired and shaken to do anything about it.

Sasuke sat down on his stool again finishing what was left in his cup.

"We'll straighten this out, tonight?"

"Sasuke…"

Even Sakura was thinking he was out of place. He didn't have a deciding matter in this. I rested my hand in front of my stomach. Luckily for the child I didn't hold any of this against it. It had been my entire fault and I almost felt sorry for it having such a broken family already.

"Does he have someone to talk about, about his problems?"

It might have been my turn to be out of line to ask, but he was connected to me now and I needed to know. If he didn't seek out treatment he would most likely become worse, he would slip further into the dark and let it rule more of his psyche.

"He talks to Kakashi sometimes I think."

Sakura spoke with uncertainty in her voice and Sasuke nodded slowly to confirm. That wasn't good enough. He should have someone capable and experienced. He needed someone who was trained and had more spare-time and less responsibilities that Kakashi.

I didn't want to intrude too much and kept quiet for the time being.

Sakura didn't know what to say next. She tried smiling to the two frowns she was looking at before she gave up and went to retrieve her left behind groceries.

"That child is and will be Uchiha."

I had never argued its origin and blood.

"Yes, but I'm unwed so it'll be first and foremost Yamanaka."

Sasuke started tapping his foot on the floor and looked if Sakura was close by.

"I don't care what, name your price and I'll take him off your hands."

I got on my feet. I couldn't ever remember being this insulted. Where did he even get the idea from? What made him think I would agree to something like this?

"Are you trying to buy my baby?!"

It sounded as insane as it was, even worse now that I had voiced it out loud.

"Money, power, a position? Just tell me what you need and we'll raise it as our own."

"Sasuke, are you trying to buy my child?"

From the shadows of the hallway a grey Itachi had appeared. He looked drained and moved slow. He too looked at Sasuke like he had lost him mind completely and he had. He was trying to buy the unborn child of his brother.

"Nobody will be buying my child."

Sasuke looked down at his lap. His blood flooded to his cheeks turning them pink. He gritted his teeth opening his lips slightly before he looked back up with a passive look on his face.

"I can assure that Ino isn't interested in selling it either."

Groceries were dropped again. So far my mistake with Itachi had caused people to drop several things and it should be taken as a sign. It wasn't a good one.

"Sasuke, I've said no children yet! They aren't like cats! Have you lost your mind?! You can't buy children!"

Itachi moved over and sat down in the stool Sakura had left on the opposite side of the table. Sakura scrambled putting stray goods in her brown bag before taking a stool beside Sasuke leaving him in the middle.

"I'm sorry about my reaction."

He took a hold of his wrist moving it in his hand. He was uncomfortable and who could blame him? Things were strange and complicated. He had just had a mental breakdown knowing he was going to father a child. It was not how someone was supposed to react to normally such happy news as a pregnancy was.

"Sasuke, I appreciate that you care, but this is between Ino and me. I'm not sure if I'm flattered that you tried to buy my child, or not."

Sakura poked Sasuke with her elbow making him rub his rib bones with tearing eyes. He had gotten the point not to try and purchase unborn children.

"As for now, if you haven't noticed Ino is very tired. I will let her sleep and I'll prepare her dinner. She will not protest, I do not want her to strain herself. As for you, Sasuke, you will stay here and think about how unacceptable you've been towards Ino. I don't know what you've said and done, but I know you shouldn't have. Sakura, you will be mad at Sasuke for whatever time you deem necessary and you won't make him dinner as punishment, if you want you can eat with us."

Itachi was off before his brother could protest being treated as a child and being not only scolded but also punished. He had only tried watching out for his family in his own way. He was taking care of their interests in the situation.

Sakura furrowed her brows and motioned for me to follow Itachi. He stood right outside the door waiting for me.

"I must again apologize. You weren't meant to see that, and I must apologize for my brother too. I can only assume he's jealous and wants what he views as the heir for himself to do and teach as he pleases. Shape it into the perfect Uchiha."

Itachi bent down and scooped me up in one swift motion making me squeal in surprise clutching his shirt afraid he would drop me. His shirt and strong hands didn't provide enough comfort for me. I felt my body heat rise.

Sakura and Sasuke came running to see what the scream was about. The sight that waited them must have been enough to whisk their gloomy mood away. Itachi was standing perfectly still while I was climbing and clawing at his shoulder and kicking with my feet as he held me bridal style.

"I noticed you left your shoes in my house."

I calmed down somewhat having heard that he had an explanation for his actions.

"I made it over here, I would make it back too. You're tired too, you don't have to carry me."

"Nonsense, you could get a cold on the wet soil and who knows, you might try and run away from me."


	15. The Before

There were many occurrences and coincidences that had to happen for me to be where I was at the present time.

Some of them I would never speak of, some I was not allowed to speak of and some things I had no one to speak to about.

The war was the main thing. Nobody had ever wanted to talk about it. With the war over we were all too busy restoring what had been broken. We never restored ourselves. We never took the time because there hadn't been any. We had to rebuild.

The town ended up looking the same. The same as it always had been, the same way it would continue to be. Konoha was always supposed to look like this.

Sometimes I still saw it destroyed with a broken back again when walking through the streets alone. It was back to what it had been. I could hear houses burning and collapsing, one and another scream and I could smell the every present coppery scent of blood. Could feel it on my hands both dried up and fresh.

We were still trying to learn how to walk again and it would be a long ride. We were broken and still recovering. It wasn't visible to the naked eye, but I knew. I had heard and I had sensed it. Things weren't back to normal. Relationships were strained.

I was still trying to learn. I stumbled and fell several times and I would fall several more times. There was no shame in admitting that I still hadn't found my place in life after the war.

There had only been one secure thing right after the war.

I had been approached by Ibiki Morino, it couldn't have been less than a few hours after my father had died and the news were starting to spread.

I knew very well they worked together. I knew what my father did. I had been to his work several times with and without permission.

Ibiki nodded towards me. In the morning glow his scars seemed almost fresh. I swore to God that if he was going to offer his condolence he would be the one to break the camel's back. I would snap and lose it all. Give it all in battle only to be sure to killed.

"I'm sure you know we're one man down in Torture and Interrogation, are you up for it?"

I didn't answer him, I knew who I would be replacing and it gave me a shot to leave the battle field. It wouldn't be much of an upgrade but death would be less imminent. My own death would be.

"You have no formal training, we're not looking for you to do much, but if you're anything like your father you'll be talented."

Father, the most loving man I knew. I knew what he did to others, I knew he wasn't the most loving man, just to his beloved daughter and now they already wanted me to replace him. Wanted me to do and feel what he had been doing for so many years.

"The salary is high, but not high enough considering the work, I can understand if you decline my offer."

"I agree with one condition, I wear my own clothes."

I had accepted hoping it would bring me closer to my late father. That it would make me more like him. More like he had wanted me to be. He had always wanted me to be like him.

I learned shortly after starting the job that my mother had died protecting the city. She had another family, she had new children that she had been willing to die for. She hadn't been sacrificing her life for me. She had left me to start a family with children and a husband she could actually love. I didn't cry for her. I just hoped she'd been happy.

It turned out shortly that I was nothing like my father. Even with my clan traits I was hardly above average in the talking part of interrogation, I wasn't good with word. In torture I found something. I rivaled Ibiki in torture. Torture made people talk so I didn't have to.

I remembered his words during the exams that there were times when information was worth more than human lives. War was one of those times and I had a drive to extract it.

There were two things that made people talk, threats to some extent but pain was really a good way to get your point across. I found that what worked the best was humiliation.

The prisoners were already humiliated by getting captured before they had the chance to kill themselves. It happened too often in war times I came to learn, information was worth more than human lives.

The humiliation started when I entered lightly clad in my purple outfit and long blond hair flowing from my pony tail. Clean face, clean skin and smile plastered on my face. I was a child, a teen and I held all the power over them.

They never took me seriously in the start. Always laughed making jokes about how my town must have sent all their good ninjas to die in the battlefield. They didn't laugh when I peeled their skin with a blank face. They screamed. There was no laughter when I got to working.

I was good at it. I had a drive never seen before. I didn't react to pleas, tears, begging or threats. I distanced myself from the prisoners because in my mind they weren't real, I wasn't real. Nothing was real and it didn't cause me pain to torture those who weren't real.

They were very much real.

They were real when I started sewing on their backs with needle and thread. Blood slowly oozing out as I sewn pictures of what I had seen. Battlefields with bodies strewn all over. Children bleeding to death. Men eating corpses in desperation.

They deserved it, these people helped cause all this I told myself.

It didn't cause me anything. It didn't even wrinkle my nose ripping off toes and crushing fingers. It was okay. It was nothing. I had experienced worse, they had nothing to cry about. All I needed for them was to speak and I would stop.

Stop.

My medical training had taught me when to stop. I knew when their bodies would cave and life would leave them. I knew a dead body was worthless to us and I would have wasted all my time. There were enough prisoners to take from. There was a never ending supply. It was worse than the battle field.

When I knew they couldn't take any more torture I took to humiliating them. I stripped them of their clothes and spoke to them things they didn't want to hear. Feed them false information about the war and their families, laughed at them because they were captured, told them there was no reason to keep quiet.

I used my age, sex and looks to taunt them.

They all broke eventually.

I didn't feel guilty about it. I didn't feel bad in the slightest. I worked for my town, I worked for the good of others and to do so I had to do less pleasurable things. It was the life of the ninja. It was I had been brought up for.

Even Ibiki was impressed with how I made even the hardest cases crack. He was a strict but honest man, he wasn't lively and cheerful even before the war and one could imagine how he was during. The only time he actually smiled was when he read my results.

That smile became bittersweet when he decided to overlook one of my sessions.

He knew I was only doing what was needed but even he was disturbed by the young girl taunting and torturing her prisoners by placing hooks in their mouths and pulling strings to make it look like they were talking.

He knew I only did what was needed and it would become worse.

The war ending wasn't celebrated in my department. It wasn't the end for us. It brought with more people and the search for war criminals were started in our entire world. They were everywhere, and sometimes their subjects needed a gentle push to hand out the information we needed to find their leaders.

In between this the prosecution of our own started.

That meant double the work to me.

My father was gone and I was leader of my clan. What little was left of it. My clan had fought bravely during the war I was told. Too bravely, I had lost my father. Percentagewise we had the largest death toll. I was told not to despair but rather rejoice in the honor.

I didn't think dying was an honor. It was our duty as ninjas. It was a duty to die to protect but after the war I never considered it an honor again.

I was made to join clans meetings, trials of our own villagers and ninjas, those who had broken the law and those who had forsaken our town.

I remember my surprise when I saw Sasuke be brought in for trial. I had just ended my shift and sat in my blood drenched shirt removing skin from underneath my nails.

It made perfect sense that his case would come up eventually. It was only right and fair. He needed to be trialed as the rest of them. He had broken the law, several of them.

I had for the first time really cared about the person in trial. I had argued and fought for him. The clan leaders and the elders were one of the few who knew what the Yamanaka heiress was up to and they feared me.

I had worked in the torture department long enough to know what would come of this trial. How long he would suffer and would be tortured was in all honesty the only thing up on the table. I knew he would be sentenced to death for his crimes.

Naruto had fought the hardest to save his life. I hadn't even bothered doing that. The elders wanted the last Uchiha dead. It was more about his last name than his crimes. It had never been a fair trial. It was all to please the elders.

Tears fell down Naruto's face and he was unnaturally silent when the judgment was read. He had taken Sasuke back because he thought he would be pardoned for his crimes considering he had changed, he had helped save them all, he had fought on their side in the war. It was the only reason Sasuke dared to come back.

Six months of daily torture, which was to come at random times an hour at a time before he would eventually be decapitated.

I had never seen Sasuke's eyes that large. He looked down at his open hands, shackled to the table. It wasn't fair. He had admitted to everything and he was ready for some punishment, but not like this. This was too much.

I left the room. I don't even think we were done for the day. I was growing tired of working all day and having these meetings in the evening. Choji and Shikamaru was going through much of the same, even more. They had paper work. Down in our cave we didn't do forms, we didn't file papers. Sure we wrote down what we had learned and handed it to Ibiki, but it wasn't paperwork such as they were doing up on the surface.

We weren't supposed to write down anything, this was all top secret. We wrote everything down in code and never what we had done to gain the information. It would be a hassle if our methods of torture came out. We would have to come up with all new regimes and that took time. If they knew what was going to happen if caught and tortured they would prepare for it.

The next day a new name had been added to my torture list, at the very bottom stood _Uchiha, Sasuke._

I knew he was held with us, but I hadn't considered the possibility that they really wanted him to suffer and had handed him to me. I was the worst, there were already rumors about me. How such a serene looking young beauty like me could be so cruel and inflict so much pain was a mystery to criminals of all kinds but they knew they feared me.

I wasn't my best that day. I didn't have my mind in it. I just went through routines not considering what fitted the prisoner and hardly knew what kind of information we were looking for. I was just dreading having a friend at the table. Perhaps not a friend, I had agreed that he was guilty of his crimes during the trial. He was a criminal, but I had hoped for the mildest punishment the law offered. Three years in prison. I knew it wasn't going to happen, but it really did pain me that he was to be tortured and executed.

I never once thought he should be tortured and killed for his actions.

Two faceless men brought him in and shackled him to his chair. He looked nervous looking at his captivators as they chained him down. He had yet to notice me. He had been chewing on his lip. The right side was open and there was a rather large wound. His chest was rising and falling rapidly.

His family worked in the police. He knew what torture was about. He knew what was about to happened and he didn't know how he would be able to handle it in his already weakened mental state.


	16. Overtime

"What do you opt we start with first, needles under your fingernails, skin scraping or what about we start the whole thing with some fireworks? Put some fire crackers up that sweet tosh of yours?"

He looked up at me for the first time, stopped struggling with his chains. He didn't feel safe looking at my familiar face. He knew I had voted him guilty. He had been allowed to know who had voted to free him of all charges and who found him guilty. It had only been Kakashi, Naruto and Hinata who wanted to free him of all charges.

He tried one final tug on his chains before he gave up. He knew it was useless that they wouldn't make such a stupid mistake to not lock his chains properly.

A small bang was heard as the two men slammed the door behind them. I knew it was about to come but Sasuke didn't. He jumped in his chair making his hands hurt when he was held back by his chains.

"Whatever you think is fair."

Whatever I thought was fair. I could hear it in his tone that he was defeated. He had given up and accepted his faith. He was momentarily held alive just to suffer.

"Okay then."

I pushed my chair back. I saw him flinch at the motion making fist. He grimaced trying to stay strong, trying to prepare for whatever was to come. He knew what I was capable of. He had heard the other prisoners speak, he had seen the conditions they were in.

That I, the girl who jumped him every chance I got had done such things came as a surprise to him. I had changed, but we all had. He was a criminal. That I wouldn't have guessed when I did my best to make him notice me, or maybe I always had a feeling. I for one wasn't surprised when he left town in his search for power.

I felt around for a button under my table and pushed it. I heard him gasp and stopped immediately.

"Sorry, wrong button!"

I pushed the other button next to it loosening the grip of his chains so that they weren't too tight. They weren't so lose that he could get out but they weren't so tight that they caused him any harm. I placed my feet on the table and watched him ponder what was going on.

"But you wanted me here."

I rubbed my forehead. He was the last one for the day and after this there was that trial for the guy who had been stealing weapons on off corpses selling them to whoever wanted to buy, including the enemy. I had looked over the case and hoped he would end up here.

"I never wanted you here, Sasuke, don't flatter yourself."

I started rubbing off dried blood. The last session hadn't been as calm as this one. Some blood had splattered on me when I pulled a tooth and well, it's not important to know what I did with it. It isn't for the fainthearted.

"But you voted guilty."

I sighed. His world must be black or white or something like that.

"Aren't you guilty?"

He had pleaded guilty to all claims. Normally that would help you but the elders had somehow managed to turn it into something bad in his trial. He had know what he had done and still he had come back to taunt us thinking we were a weak nation that would forgive anything.

"I got your sentence down from one year and three months."

He didn't respond to that. Didn't like that I had helped him when he hadn't asked for it or maybe he even thought he deserved those extra months. He didn't, but sometimes you're harder on yourself than others. I knew all about that.

We didn't speak after that. We sat there in silence for almost an hour before the men returned. They looked surprised to find Sasuke almost unharmed but they didn't speak a word of it. They knew we had once known each other.

Every session went like that. Sometimes I started my day with him, other times we ate lunch together, but I enjoyed ending my day with him the most. He served as a silent reminder that whatever was to come I had my dignity and freedom. I had the reminder of my life ahead of me, free to do with is as I wanted.

It had taken a few weeks before Naruto forced himself to speak to me again. He had been informed that I had been picked to torture one of his best friends, the platonic love of his life. He had dreaded me as the plague but at a meeting we had been forced to speak.

"How is he holding up?"

He didn't look good. He didn't look healthy. I knew he was given too little food for him to get enough nutrition, I knew cries and whimpering from other prisoners held him up during the day and night. He spent most of our session sleeping after he had glared me down to make sure I didn't pose a danger to him today either.

"He's almost in pristine condition."

Whatever maltreating he suffered it didn't come from me.

"Has he asked for me?"

"We don't speak, Naruto."

Then his eyes narrowed again and his face tightened. Had it been any other place and setting he would have attacked me. I knew that look in his eyes. That pure, boiling anger causing the desire to inflict pain upon me. Pain as he thought I was causing Sasuke.

"Prison life isn't easy, I let him sleep and other times I let him eat my lunch. I didn't want this anymore than you."

I saw that he wanted to say something more. I had a feeling it was about my line of profession. I knew he didn't approve of it. He was more of a talker than a fighter and he had proven to be a good one too.

I could see the color drain from Sasuke's face the closer we got to the execution date. Not even greetings from Naruto and Sakura cheered him up anymore, no news from the outside seemed to interest him.

He was gray, with yellow and dull eyes. He had lost so much weight I was surprised that he was able to walk anymore. I tried giving him food, made extra meals I would give him in our sessions but it didn't help. It didn't help when he threw it all up again.

With three days to go he looked dead already.

"Will you tell everyone I'm sorry?"

I would tell him that he was sorry, but it wasn't his fault. It wasn't fair that he was to die but we were still in my eyes living in war times and fair had no power during those times. Information is more worth than human lives, but Sasuke had no information to tell. He had already told everything so to me his death would be a pointless one and I didn't care for pointless killings.

"Naruto is back to wanting to be Hokage again."

Sasuke let out a little laugh. There was for a short time a few days where he contemplated giving up his lifelong dream when he found out about the dreaded paperwork. I had told Sasuke about it and he had only laughed then too. Yesterday thought, Naruto had a talk with Shikamaru that convinced him that the paperwork was worth it.

Shikamaru. I never talked with them anymore. Last I heard Choji had started dating the girl of his dreams and Shikamaru was engaged. Engaged to the golden sand girl. I didn't know her, I knew that I didn't like her and the hole I felt inside kept growing. It was as if another piece of me had gone missing and I desperately tried to fill it.

I tried hanging on to Choji and Shikamaru. I tried my best, asking them if they wanted to train together, if they wanted to go out for dinner but all they did was to turn me down. They didn't have time for me anymore, there was another woman in their lives and I had lost the only support I had since I lost my father.

It was almost as if they avoided me and who I had become. They were letting go of me in my time of need. They were always busy, if they weren't with their girls there was clan work. I think the death of their best friends shocked their fathers. I hadn't been ready to be clan leader. I had wanted to step down from the responsibility within the clan, making the hole inside me bigger. I wasn't doing a good enough job.

I had let my father down. He had told me that I was ready, but I wasn't. I wasn't ready for any of this.

There was a knock on the door. Sasuke turned around to see where the sound came from. Guards didn't knock. Guards walked straight in not caring what they interrupted or what they saw. I had never experienced knocking.

I placed my feet on the ground again and got up. There was another knock, more urgent this time making me stop in my tracks. I had never experienced knocking in our cave. I was almost scared and a bit curious about what was on the other side.

More knocking interrupted me and this time it didn't stop. Whomever who was behind the door desperately wanted in. I rashly opened the door and a piece paper was almost smashed in my face. All I saw was read and the official stamps and markings verifying that it had come from the Hokage.

I stepped out of the room and closed the door behind me.

I supported my cheek with my palm feeling some blood roll off at the touch, from my hands or my face I didn't know.

I was handed the letter by a man who stood still. Dark hair, dark eyes, stoic face. I knew very well who it was. It was someone who was dead, but nothing surprised me anymore, not down here. It was Sasuke's brother. He didn't speak a word but waited for me to open the letter.

It basically said that a deal had been made pardoning Sasuke asking me to release him.

I slammed the paper on the chest of Itahi not even waiting to see if he got it before I dropped it.

I opened the door and waited for him to follow me but he stood still.

"Is he badly broken?"

His voice had a rasp to it, he had a dry throat. He spoke quietly. He too knew very well what torture was about. I closed the door again. He was a concerned next of kin and I was pulled back to the time when I was a medic and would have to console parents and sibling all the time. How it was to give the message that their loved one wouldn't make it.

I looked down at my own feet having my back against what was supposed to be a deranged criminal, the one that Sasuke had given it all up to kill. I cleared my throat before I spoke.

"He's… He isn't in any danger, I think the worst is in his mind, what he's experienced outside of this room. I haven't laid hands on him."

Hadn't I had my back to him I would have caught something as rare as Itachi Uchiha surprised. There was a reason for the knocks.

He had come as soon as he had heard. What he had been doing, how he had survived no one knew. He had feared he would come too late, that it was all too late and the faith of his brother was gone. If not dead, then too damaged to ever be him again. He had too heard about the blond sadist in Konoha. When he had seen my platinum blond hair he had prepared himself for the worst wondering once again if it hadn't been better just to let him die.

He hadn't known who had been attending his brother's punishments when he had stricken the deal. I still don't know what the deal was about. I know he would have to give up something more than his story. Information was worth more than human lives.

Now he was dreading the worst. Something had dropped down in his stomach when he saw this young girl exit covered in blood. His brother's he assumed. He had knocked so urgently to make me stop whatever I had been doing. Now I was telling him I hadn't even touched him, but his mental state wasn't in good condition.

He knew what clan I belonged to and what we specialized in. he was still assuming I had tortured his little brother. He didn't judge me, he knew how far one could go to fulfill one's duty to our town. He just wished anybody but me had been locked up with his brother.

"I'll get him ready for you."

I stepped in to the room closing the door behind me. I had decided to do this the moment I saw his name on my list. I walked over to the table again I noticed that he had eaten the sandwiches and three out of the five tomatoes I had given him.

Under the table I found the button read the dots that covered it, it was the right button this time. I pushed it and his shackles were opened to his surprise. He was promptly up on his feet when it was clear to him that I knew what I was doing.

What he didn't know was why I was setting him free. If it was to help him break out or if something else was happening, like his execution. Happy eyes were soon suspicious.

I walked over to him. I had dreamt of this moment for almost six months. I prepared myself and with all my might I punched him. My fist connected with his jaw and sent him flying down on the floor.

"Sasuke, you've been pardoned. That punch, you can decide for yourself if it was from Konoha or me personally. It was for all the tears you've made Sakura and Naruto cry. It was for all the pain you've inflicted on us and all the times you've endangered our lives."

I stepped over him and opened the door for his brother who rushed in seeing his emaciated younger brother lying on the floor bleeding. I could hear him throwing up when I stepped out. If it was from my punch or something else I didn't know, I didn't care. I was essentially glad he was free, I wouldn't have to work that hour overtime anymore.


	17. Platinum Shatters

_There's a dwindling interest in this story and I'm not going to flog a dead horse. So I've decided just to cut this story short. I had so many good subplots lined up so that I could drag it out, but if people aren't feeling this story as much anymore I'll end it soon. I'll focus more on my other stories which I've kind of forgotten and ignored for too long. I appreciate every follow, favorite and review I've gotten._

 _EMG_

COCOCOCOCOCOCOCOCOCOC

Days had drifted back to normal after Sasuke had left. It was all the same, it was all the way it had used to be and I still felt the same. Still felt this gap inside me, this hole with no bottom.

Choji and Shikamaru were still busy with missions of all kinds and clan work. The few meetings we had had now becoming further and further apart. I didn't have my friends anymore for support and I felt myself rotting in Naruto's old apartment.

I had been back to the house to get a picture of father that was standing next to my mattress in the bedroom.

It was all I had taken from the house, some clothes, a mattress, a picture of father and the plant father and mother planted the day I was born. The rest I left behind as they were all suffocating me. I couldn't be in my house anymore, not when it was nurturing and feeding the hole inside of me.

A year would go in the same fashion. Choji was the only one I occasionally saw once in a while. Sakura was still busy treating those injured and I heard she had finally gotten her dream fulfilled and started dating Sasuke. Shikamaru I never saw anymore.

He had gotten married. He had gotten married without me present, without me knowing. It was Choji who told me, said it was a shame I had to work that day. Shikamaru had told him I had tried to get time off but I was the best and with being the very best at torture came responsibilities. Then Choji casually started talking about his own pending wedding.

I didn't know if it was the reason he didn't want me there, but I had a feeling it was because of my work. He had blamed my absence on my work. I would never judge him for what he did for a living if the roles were reversed. I was doing it for the better of our town.

I felt the hole growing larger and I felt like I was shattering later that night. He had gotten married without me. He hadn't even invited me. He hadn't even said a word. He had moved on with his life without me and I was no longer part of the team.

It had been the three of us, ever since birth, before our birth even. It was tradition and destiny. It was always destined that we were going to be together, we had sworn. I closed my eyes for a second and they were already married and getting married, going on missions without me. I was left behind, underground where I belonged. I felt dead.

It was a week after I heard the news. I had seen him for the first time since he had married. He seemed surprised to see me and shot his hand in his pocket. He gave me a fake halfhearted grin and stopped. I walked right past him because he had fallen into the hole inside of me. He was dead and gone.

I was to interrogate a man later that day. He had been caught over a week ago but there hadn't been anyone able to crack him. He was still keeping quiet. He had open wounds, burn marks and bruises. Some of his wounds were infected and started to reek.

"All I need is a location and I'll heal you straight away."

He was accused for human trafficking. Selling orphans after the war and widows left to fend for themselves with their families dead. All I needed to know was where he kept them. He chuckled. He had landed at my desk as a last resort.

"You're just a child."

I had heard it before. It didn't faze me anymore, I couldn't even make myself care.

"And they're making you destroy your life down here."

It was my turn to laugh. My life was destroyed long ago and this was the only thing keeping me together. This was my sanity.

"What happened to you, Platinum Doll?"

I knew that along with Platinum Angel and Moonlight Vixen were my nick names, what I was known as among scum like I was facing right now. They were all ridicules, the nicknames.

"I didn't sell my heart like you, I have a conscience."

"Do you really, Doll, do you have a heart?"

I had heard this one too and I most definitively had a heart if I hadn't I wouldn't be hurting.

"I don't abuse and sell children."

"How is that any worse than torture?"

It was different. I did this for the benefit of society. I did it for those children. I didn't do it for personal gain. I did it because I had to, I was good at it.

"The only difference between us is that you're on the other side of the table. You're too inflicting pain and running lives of prisoners and their families."

I had done something for the first time in my job that day. I had killed someone. I had ignored the warning signs. I could have done some many things different but I had taken what he had said to heart and I had ended up wanting revenge.

It was a good feeling that second he stopped breathing. I was told it happened even the best. It wasn't supposed to happen to me. Their only concern was that he hadn't given the location of his captives. I handed them the information I had been able to get out of him. It was more than any other had been able to get but it wasn't enough.

It had taken them five days to find the captives. Five days to puzzle together the clues and find them. In the mean time five of them had died and three more would die in the hospital. My mistake had cost the lives of eight innocent women and children.

The hole inside me grew bigger and I couldn't be bothered to leave my mattress. I had been given a week to get over the worst. A week to mend my ego and lick my wounds. When the eight day came around and I was to go back to work but I couldn't move.

I was frozen. I had spent the week thinking about what I had done and who I had become since I started in the department. Father had said he was proud of me and I had done the opposite of what was expected, of what he would have wanted for me.

I had been so accustom to the scent of blood and rotting flesh that I didn't even gag at the foulest smells and not the most gruesome sight and injuries bothered me. I had become immune to human suffering so that I would become immune to my own.

It had been a great set up and it had worked for long but reality was that I was suffering, bitter and alone. I was bitter at everyone who had moved on from the war. Bitter at those who had been able to move past their losses but I had lost everything. I had lost the only family I had.

My father was dead and all my friends were distant. They would hurt me less if they were actually dead. I wished they were dead, that they had died in the war and hadn't been able to reject me. That they hadn't been able to hurt me.

The third day missing there was a knock on the door. A soft voice called my name. Must have been a genin, or something along those lines. He called out for Miss Yamanaka. I didn't answer him. I was crying.

He came back the next morning. He sounded young. He sounded so innocent. Probably hadn't taken his first kill, probably hadn't fought in the war, and probably hadn't tossed away his innocence yet.

The sixth day there was a different one. A more mature and experienced one. I knew very well who that was. I knew very well that it was my boss. They were worried now. He said that he knew I was in there and that I should just open. He knocked once more and left when I didn't move from the floor.

The next day he didn't ask me to open. The next day there was just a knock and when the door didn't open he unlocked it himself. I hadn't put up and traps, anybody who wished to could walk in. I didn't have anything to hide or save, not even my own life.

He coughed at the stale air. I had been in there for two weeks straight. I knew there was rotten food in the kitchen and that the air didn't contain much oxygen.

It was pity in his eyes when he found me. I didn't expect him to be able to feel such an emotion. I was sure he was void of empathy but that might have been just me. Just me who didn't give a shit about anybody but myself, because everyone who mattered were dead to me.

He sat down by my mattress placing a hand on my forehead. I had a slight fever, I knew that. My body was fighting itself not knowing what was going on. Not knowing how to respond to the battle in my mind.

"Oh, Ino. I shouldn't have asked you."

It wasn't his fault. He had done nothing wrong. Had he asked again I would have said yes. I had broken down because I had become an empty hole and it had nothing to do with my work. They weren't related I told myself.

"We're going to the hospital, okay?"

I looked at him with empty eyes and he almost flinched before picking me up. I started struggling in his arms. It was a weak struggle but he put me down wondering why I was putting up a fight. I reached out and grabbed the picture of my father. He was allowed to do and take me wherever he pleased now.

I remember Sakura had been the head of the war related trauma department. I was the last patient in her care before she transmitted, the last patient she admitted. It had been over a year since she had a new patient and the department was closed but a few who would need help for the remainder of their life.

I remember Sakura turning away when she saw me. I remember her gagging; she had taken me for a bath the first thing. Stripped me naked and helped me in the shower to get the worst filth away, then she helped me into the tub. I still had the picture of my father in my hands. I didn't pay much attention to her. I could feel her hands running through my hair and I could hear her speak. Father thought I was ready, father was proud of me and I had let him down.

I was dried and put in hospital clothes and helped to a bed. I couldn't walk on my own. It had been ten days if not eleven since I last had a meal and I had stopped drinking five days ago. I had been placed on fluids as soon as I was safe in the tub.

I still remember how dried and cracked my lips had been. How my skin was flaking and how I tried to cry but my eyes were just dried and irritated so I gave up.

I had hoped that Choji and Shikmaru would come by. I was hoping they would visit now that they knew I was sick. The news had somehow spread that the Yamanaka heiress had finally lost it. I had really lost it too. I couldn't help it. I had broken down.


	18. Living Dead

_Don't worry too much about the previous note, I'll finish the story somehow. I won't leave you hanging._

 _EMG_

Nobody had come for me. It was just Sakura and me. There were other nurses but their faces were plain and soon forgotten. I waited for someone else to come through the door. Waited for something to happen but nothing ever did.

On the eight day Sakura was trying to chat with me, waiting for Sasuke to come get her. I didn't speak to anyone anymore. I only spoke in my sleep but I wasn't told what I was saying. I just woke up with a dry mouth and an aching jaw.

Sasuke entered the room still looking fragile but he looked better. Healthier and he had started to gain weight. I think he wanted to enjoy watching me in that bed. It was as if we had reversed our roles. He was the free one now and I was chained by my own mind.

He didn't speak a word to me. I imagine he had counted that punch as a gift from me and I would stand by it. It was in its place and had deserved it. I wouldn't take it back or apologize.

He came about other times too. Sometimes Itachi would tag along but he never entered my room. I didn't know why, but I wanted him to keep his distance. I didn't want him near me, even if it turned out he had done things for the town, sacrificed everything he had. He had done it willingly. He had killed off what I so desperately wanted.

He had done it with open eyes. Sasuke hadn't, he had been robbed of his family and parents. His feelings weren't considered when he took everything away and he had been doing it ever since. He had done it all with open eyes. Information is worth more than human lives.

"Ino, what is wrong with you?"

Sakura caved and asked one day. I was the only patient admitted. I was the only one here all the time and on days like these there could be time between Sakura's appointments.

She knew she shouldn't be asking what was wrong with me, it was clear that my condition wasn't of the body. It wasn't my body that had caved, it was my mind. You didn't ask the mentally sick why they were sick.

"Why are you sad?"

I didn't feel sad anymore. I had stopped feeling sad when I started working because that was something else to think about, something else to focus on. I was empty now. I was consumed by the hole that had been made by the war, by the death of my father.

Sakura sighed and picked up her lunch. I didn't eat much. I was used to it. I was used to not eating from all my dieting. It came in handy during the war when food was scarce. I wasn't bothered by it and rather tried to keep morals high. I even gave my food to Choji when I was with him. It was always stale and bad anyway.

I could feel the taste in my mouth, molded bread and rotting meat, as Sakura was telling one of her stories moving on from her questions.

"Sasuke said that you were kind to him."

I had told her I wasn't harming him. I had to promise or else she would crush me. Sakura didn't have a say in the court. She wasn't from any clan, she had parents spared from our way of life. They were just civilians that had raised a killing machine and that didn't matter shit in our town.

I always felt bad about Sakura always been on the outside. She didn't come from any clan, respectful or not. When she said her name it wouldn't ring any bells. Not before she became a war hero that was.

Today I envied her that. When I said my name now, it wasn't always necessary, people would see my father. People expected things of me. They expected me to behave a certain way, act a certain way, be able to do certain things and basically been made in a fucking Yamanaka factory press. I was the heiress who hadn't claimed her inheritance.

Sakura picked up his picture looking at it with compassion in her eyes.

"He was always so kind to me when I came over."

He was always kind. He was a kind man and now he was gone. I knew Sakura had lost friends and close ones too, but nothing could compare to what I had felt, what I had been through. I think there are few who do. My bond with my father was special.

Perhaps Sasuke had felt something like it when he was certain his brother was dead. Maybe Hinata felt something like it losing Neji.

Perhaps they too had black burning holes inside of them.

I think Sakura knew what it was about. She had asked about my old team and wondered if I didn't want them to visit?

"They're dead."

Sakura promptly put the picture back down looking at me with wide eyes, surprised that I had spoken for the first time since I came.

"Oh Ino, they're not dead. Choji was here earlier for a check-up after a mission he and Shikamaru had been on."

"They're dead to me."

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Guest: Thank you! You're incredible too! That review made my day.

Sweetlilly: I know the feeling. I'm also super swamped with university and work. Don't take it personally I don't know how much time I'll have for updates the coming month so some of the reason I'm contemplating to cut it short. I'll finish though, so no worries about that. It seems like you've picked up extremely well everything that's going on. I had somewhat a problem with making Ino more or less a sadistic maniac, but I had to for the odd, non-contemplated plotline.

Goheneampong: We're looking at about ten chapters to go, if nothing changes. I'm glad you're enjoying the story though and thank you for your review.


	19. Ours

Today, my time in recovery felt so long ago. Today as I was being carried by Itachi it seemed like it had been a different life. I couldn't compare them.

I saw that my blood had dried up. Even an hour ago seemed like a different life than right now. So long ago. Itachi let go of me and I felt almost cold without his warmth.

"I'll prepare a guestroom for you."

I stopped him by pulling the shirt he had changed into.

"You don't have to bother. I should get going anyway, I have to close the shop."

His head dropped. I could see his hair falling in front of his face. I liked it better when it was tied up in his usual pony tail. I liked it better because it didn't make him look so sad. It was odd that his hairstyle made him look so different. It was small detail of the whole picture, but it made such a drastic change.

"I don't want you to."

I wasn't sure if I wanted to either. Now wasn't the time to leave him. I had just taken him for one of the longest rides emotionally and was already planning on leaving him.

"I won't mind crashing in your bed, if you don't mind?"

He lifted his head again having won the battle. He always knew what he was doing and he knew how to get it his way. I often suspected him for playing on others feelings. I couldn't say anything because I was guilty of doing just the same.

"I don't mind."

He started walking and I followed him. I remembered where his bedroom was and could have gotten there myself. He opened the door and reviled his tidy room with his bed made after Sasuke had left him in it.

I didn't know what to do from there on and out. Was I supposed to get undressed, would he leave me alone, would he want to watch to make sure I didn't run away which he was worried I would do?

I decided that it wasn't a part of my body hadn't seen already and stripped of my skirt and shirt as it would be uncomfortable to sleep in. He shifted behind me and when he started moving I suspected he was leaving but he moved towards the dresser and opened a drawer.

Something black came flying against me.

"If you want a shirt to sleep in."

I nodded pulling it over my head. With my upper body covered I unhinged my bra and took it off. I moved towards his bed pulling the covers and lied down.

"What would you want for dinner?"

I shifted in his bed. It felt harder this time than it had that night. That god forsaken night when everything that possible could go wrong ended in disaster.

"Fish?"

I shook my head. I didn't want fish. I didn't want to eat.

"I'm not hungry."

I hadn't eaten since my break at the flower shop. That had been hours ago. Still with everything that had happened I wasn't hungry. I didn't even want to think about eating.

"I'm not asking if you're hungry, I'm asking what you want to eat."

I scuffed and turned my back to him. I wasn't hungry, I was feeling sick. He couldn't force me to eat. It was bad enough that I had ended up back in his bed.

"I'm sick."

I didn't expect him to care or pity me. I had a hope that he would understand that I didn't want to eat when I was feeling sick and that he would respect that. It was my choice to eat what I wanted when I wanted and I swore that if he would lecture me about eating for two I would try to slash his throat. I knew what I was doing.

"When mother was pregnant with Sasuke, she only ate tuna sandwiches for a period."

The idea of putting cold fish in my mouth would be enough to make me gag if I hadn't just found a comfortable position.

"Make it chicken and we have a deal."

A chicken sandwich actually sounded good, I was certain I could eat that.

"I'll have them ready for when you wake up."

He turned around silently closing the door behind him.

"Thank you!"

I knew he heard it, he lingered a few moments behind the door before he went away. I could feel it.

I quickly decided that the position I had found wasn't comfortable.

His sheets smelled like lemons. It didn't smell as sweet as my clothes had done the time he washed them for me.

I could hear him preparing the food in the kitchen. I laid listening and wondering why he bothered. If I was in his situation I would have sent him home to let him fend for himself. I'm not saying I would deny the paternity of the child or anything. At the same time I'm not saying that I wouldn't. I don't know what I would do actually.

Make chicken sandwiches was certainly not it.

I got up after lying about half an hour after Itachi was done cooking. In his shirt I walked through the house. I couldn't hear a single sound. I couldn't hear him but I knew where to find him.

He lay huddled on the living room couch. I sat down in the chair next to it and watched him. It didn't make sense that he could look so vulnerable. He had the features and size of a man but he reminded me more of a child in the way he was sleeping with his head resting on his arms.

It didn't make sense, it wasn't right that he looked almost cute.

I got up and went into the kitchen to find a glass.

"Do you make a habit of rummaging through others possessions while they're sleeping?"

I hadn't notice him waking up and joining me. He startled me almost making me lose the glass I was holding. We were together and nothing had been dropped so far. Not since Sakura dropped her groceries.

"Only when they fall asleep while having company."

He rubbed his eyes stretching and let out a big roar more than a yawn. It didn't fit because he looked more like a kitten than a tiger.

He went over to the refrigerator.

"I couldn't sleep."

He finally had a look at his watch realizing he hadn't been gone for long.

"You have such a big bed.

\- and I'm too light making the mattress so hard."

Itachi turned around spinning on his heels. He held up his finger looking to the right as if he was thinking about something or just realizing something.

"Are you, Ino Yamanaka, asking me to sleep beside you?"

I hadn't intentionally asked him but I now knew what it sounded like. I had hinted to wanting him to join me in his bed. I guess it wouldn't be fair to have his bed making him sleep on the couch when the bed was big enough to share.

"I was able to sleep last time."

"I would be a bad host if I were to say no."

Another stretch and he started moving towards the bedroom. He was stripping of his clothes and folding them as I entered. He stripped down to his last garment, his boxer, and jumped into the bed.

I joined him laying down on the edge. I wanted to be close to him, but I kept my distance.

"Do you have your episodes often?"

I didn't feel the need to beat around the bush with Itachi. He would see straight through it making it all a waste of time, a weak cover up to my intentions.

"Do you get pregnant with strangers often leaving the father to find out by chance because you for some deranged reason wanted to rob him of the role as a father?"

"First time."

"Not as often as I used to."

I lay down on my side with my back facing him. Not as often meant that he didn't know or he wasn't keeping tracks on his episodes. I could feel him shift and move behind me. Perhaps he couldn't get comfortable in his own bed either.

"Sorry, that was out of line. I'm upset you wouldn't tell me."

I turned around on my back again. He wasn't going to pull this on me? He had made it clear what he felt about the case making his intentions to keep me prisoner there unclear.

"Really? You laughed at the idea, you constantly bash me, you've already said I was crazy about having a child making me think you would blame this on me. Tell me it was a trap I had laid for you, getting knocked up when you so clearly didn't want a child, especially with me. What do you think was going through my mind? That I should buy you a nappy as a joke and give you a card? Throw a surprise party, propose marriage, abort it? Not to mention that your brother wanted to buy the child! What would you do? Not to mention the idiotic fact that you're an Uchiha meaning that now I won't have a child, the elders will have an Uchiha and the town will rejoice. Not because I've had a child, but because they've gained another worthless shit Uchiha and my child will become one because I won't have a say in anything. I won't have a child, I will give birth to a child. Did I mention that you made it perfectly clear that you didn't want a child with me? This child will become another sulky Uchiha predisposed to depression and lingering continuously present angst! Its angst hormones will be through the roof. It'll never learn to be a relaxed and poised Yamanaka, never learn how to behave among people!"

At the end of my rant Itachi was giggling and I ended it. I hadn't spoken that much in such a short amount of time since my teens. I was letting him know what was going on in my mind, I let him know my deepest fears, how hurt I had been and he had the nerve to laugh!

"Relaxed and poised?! I've seen stray, frightened, hungry dogs covered with scabies and rabies calmer and more poised than you right now!"

I felt like one. I shot my elbow in his rib bones making him stop giggling with that insane laugh of his. Now he was just shaking trying to control himself.

"And my brother did try to buy it, that wasn't just me?"

Now it was my turn to laugh. Not even in my wildest teenage dreams I would have dared to dream that Sasuke would have wanted to buy my unborn child. What an absurd thing to say.

"Perhaps it was his lingering angst kicking in!"

Itachi was holding a hand above his stomach kicking into the air now. I had never seen him like this. So lighthearted and full of life. There was always something beneath everything he did, some hidden agenda I so rarely was able to pick up on but this was pure.

I couldn't help myself laughing along with him, if not of him.

"But I would never let them take it."

Our eyes met and once again wanted to move closer to him. I wish I could kiss him, wish I could feel those urges when it came to him but I didn't. I couldn't force it. I still wasn't sure about him. I felt safe with him, but I didn't know if I liked him.

"I would never let them have a say, I'll make sure of that. This is our child."

I lay back on my side again away from Itachi. Hot tears rolled down my face. I could hear them drop from my nose, could feel them stain the pillow. Itachi moved behind me coming close up behind. I lifted my hand to find his. He still hadn't been allowed to feel it yet. I hadn't let anyone touch my stomach, not even Choji when his eyes light up at the sight of my bump. I hadn't wanted it. It didn't feel right because the child was just mine.

I could feel him spread his fingers trying to fit all of it in his hands. I smiled enjoying the feeling.

For the first time in years I had something to start filling the hole inside of me with.

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Mari301: Don't worry, I would never quit. I just might end it earlier than planned. I would never leave my readers hanging.

Sweetlilly90: I almost felt bad making her life that miserable, with the lack of support, friends and the pressure on her. It was almost as if I had to remind myself that she wasn't real, poor Ino. Thankfully I get to make things better for her too like in this chapter!

EmoPrincess21: I think it'll be another five-ten chapters if I'm able to part with the story yet. Might be longer, but I'm not making any promises. I hope you're feeling better now! I felt awful putting her through all that, but I'm also kind so she's doing better now.


	20. Under the Bed

I didn't know untill later that Sakura had swung by waking Itachi who was laying behind me. He had slipped out of bed to join Sakura in the hall way. She had a giddy grin. He softly closed the door not to disturb me. He looked down on Sakura before remembering he had told her she could come by for dinner if she wished to.

"You're sweet together."

He just as me wasn't as certain. I often failed to remember that he didn't know me either. We should have known better to get so tied up to each other but it was too late.

"The bed was too hard for her to sleep in alone."

An eyebrow shot up. That was a weak excuse and they both knew it.

"I would be a bad host if I didn't help her."

The other eyebrow joined its friend high up on Sakura's large forehead. Itachi could keep rowing and throwing explanations on her, but he wouldn't get anywhere.

"Sure… Then why was she in your bed, and why were you all tangled up?"

"We decided that it was the easiest if she slept in my bed so that I wouldn't have to prepare the guestroom for her. We were sleeping so close because she wanted me to… I don't know, feel the baby?"

There was a rather loud "aw" emitting from Sakura and Itachi desperately tried to shush her. He remembered how loud and gooey women could get when it came to babies.

"How's Sasuke taking the news?"

Sakura rolled her eyes. They had argued when the two others had left. She couldn't remember last time their fighting got this serious. They hadn't even screamed, it was all calm and collected. That was always the worst kind of fighting.

How was he taking the news? One would think he would only be happy. His dream was coming true and a new generation of Uchiha would be born. It wasn't what had gone down.

He had seemed almost gloomy, bitter. He was supposed to be the first to produce a new Uchicha. It was supposed to be his child that was born first. It was supposed to his who was the oldest and possible heir.

It was a done deal. He had a girl he would possible marry some day, she loved him and was willing to birth his children, also some day. His brother was seemingly oblivious to what was up and down on a woman. He didn't show any interest either. Sasuke was in the right tracks to become a father, it was only a question of time and he did have time.

Then his brother had come out right beneath him and done something Sasuke couldn't remember his brother ever doing, a mistake. A mistake so grave and juvenile. It was nothing like him. He wasn't even sure his brother knew how to make babies.

Then he had a one nightstand, unprotected sex. With the loudest and thickest girl in his class. No, not thick as in fat. No, even if she was a ninja she had the wild idea that dieting, starving her body for desperately needed energy, was a good idea. She had all the potential in the world but she wasted it all because of her personality that her father nurtured and encouraged.

The result was evident. She was still a Genin, she had quit her job, she had been forced to retire from being a Ninja and she apparently slept with strangers. It had only been a question of time before something like this happened to Ino. That it would be with his brother was the biggest and only shock.

He was glad the line would be secured, but it should have been with his child.

"I hope he'll stop bugging me for kids now, but I think this will only fuel his ambitions. It was a blow for him I think, he took it as you having another victory against him."

Itachi nodded his head. He had feared that his brother would react like this. He had assumed he would throw a hissy fit while being happy. It had been so much worse than he had expected. He chuckled at the fact that he had tried to buy his child but the reason why sobered him up.

"I wish he'll realize that we're different, that we shouldn't be compared."

It was true. The brothers were widely different. At times it seemed like the only thing they had in common were their parents and eyes. I had always wondered what it was like having a sibling. I had always wondered what it felt like. I viewed Shikamaru and Choji as my brothers, but there was still some distance between us. We didn't grow up in the same house.

"Keep wishing, I don't think that'll happen. I just hope he'll ask me to marry him soon. Just to beat you if you decide to marry Ino before she has the child."

He knew Sakura was fishing. He knew that she was basically asking him if he intended to propose to me. He hadn't considered it. He hadn't thought about it because it wasn't an option. I think he knew I would reject him. Tell him no.

"Sakura, the situation is messy. The politics surrounding this child will be uttermost intricate."

It was what I had dreaded. It was what I knew. There were several books on the subject. I had seen them in the Hokage office and wondered if someone would ever have use for them. What heiress would get pregnant with an heir she wasn't married or engaged to? Even I knew at that time it was the dumbest thing you could do.

Now I would have to borrow those books. I don't even think there's a chapter on the subject when both parents come from clans under the threat of extinction.

"Wouldn't that go away if you married?"

Itachi sighed. It was making his head hurt thinking about all of it. A marriage would solve many problems, but also create new ones, if even the Hokage and the Yamanaka elders blessed the wedding.

"No."

And if it was one thing Itachi had learned in life it was that it seldom turned out to be a good idea to correct a mistake with another mistake.

Sakura was certain we belonged together. She was already thinking about helping Itachi picking out a ring, deciding colors in the wedding and the guest list.

She firmly believed that we complimented each other that we in some way made each other complete. He was my darkness and I was his light. Too bad we both good person with darkness within us, just to sound cheesy. If anything we complimented our bad sides.

Sakura shrugged and rolled her eyes certain we would come around.

X

I woke up to find out that the sun had set, Itachi had gotten up and folded my clothes laying them on the bedside table.

My stomach growled as I stretched. I could feel it vibrate all the way to my shoulders. Starting with one lone leg I started departing the bed and the warmth and comfort it provided. I didn't have problem straining my hearing to hear that Itachi wasn't alone in the living room. I assumed it was either Sasuke or Sakura that had come over, if not both. It wasn't often you found the one without the other anymore.

It was almost impressive that Itachi had folded and stacked my clothes in the order I would put them on. I didn't bother with my shirt. It still had that blood stain on it. It was a perfect excuse to stay in Itachi's shirt.

I looked around the room. There were no pictures hanging on the wall, a few diplomas and letters hung in the corner over the dresser. On the dresser stood various trophies I had a feeling he wasn't displaying all that he had gotten growing up. It wasn't often that we did the whole trophies and diplomas thing, but he surely must have gotten everyone worth having.

Mischief filled me as I wasn't ready to leave the lone comfort in being alone I dropped on all four. I had always wondered if the cleanliness was all an act. I for one had never been to a bachelor's house and not find dust.

Crawling under his bed I was able to drag my finger across the floor up towards the corner. I muttered curses under my breath. I could eat of the floor. I could probably lick it and not a single strain of dust would stick to my tongue.

"Ino, are you under the bed?"

His voice was skeptical. He knew I hadn't left the room, but he couldn't see me.

"I lost my earring!"

I blurted it out too fast for it to sound true, it was plausible but the delivery made it assured it was a lie. Sasuke would have to wonder why I was crawling under Itachi's bed. He didn't ask any further questions so I imagined that he didn't want to know either.

"Do you need help getting out?"

I hadn't moved since he came in. I wasn't stuck, was I? No, I was able to push myself out. I exited at the end of the bed. I instinctively dusted myself off as I stood but there wasn't anything to dust off to my annoyance. Sasuke shook his head at something and stormed off.

I followed the hallway to find Itachi and Sakura talking and laughing about something. Itachi was drinking water but Sakura was drinking wine. Sasuke was still standing trying to get the attention of his brother.

"She's hiding under your bed, wearing our clan symbol. Care to explain?"

"I said I lost my earring, and I borrowed a shirt. Big deal."

I sat down in the vacant chair rubbing my eyes, still sleepy.

"I'm not comfortable with this, Sakura isn't allowed to wear my clan clothes."

Sakura sighed putting her glass down. He had made it perfectly clear that she couldn't borrow his clothes. He had practically ripped his shirt off her when she had borrowed it without asking. Sasuke didn't share his clothes so if Sakura wanted oversized shirts she would have to buy them herself. Not that Sasuke actually was that much bigger than her.

"That's because you don't allow her, I have no problem with it."

Sasuke knew defeat when he faced it and he would win an argument about this against his brother. Not when their clan symbol wasn't sacred to him. It didn't bear the same meaning and importance to him as it did for Sasuke.

"I think we should sort out the whole baby situation now."

Sakura looked over at her boyfriend. She knew that they had no say and no part in the matter but she desperately wanted to know everything and be part of it. If Sasuke started pushing they would be asked to leave, Itachi would have no problem kicking them out if they started to annoy them.

"You're about three months along, aren't you, Ino."

Sakura leaned on her knee looking at me, judging my size. She sounded so cheerful when she spoke. I nodded too hungry to really function properly.

"That means you'll have your first check up soon!"

I wanted her to do it. I had wanted Sakura along every step of the way. I would never admit it, I didn't want to come off as weak and needy. I was just hoping she would offer to do it. I didn't want anyone else touching me.

"I guess you haven't made an appointment yet, since nearly nobody knows."

Word would be out soon now, if it already it would happen one of the next days. Especially taken the very public scene Itachi and I had caused earlier today.

"Sakura wants to do it, and Ino wants you to do it."

It was Itachi addressing Sakura. Sasuke nodded agreeing.

"Yes, it'll be wisest since Sakura is one of us."

Sakura smiled widely and leaned her head on Sasuke's shoulder. He had never referred to her as one of them before.

"I'd wanted that very much yes."

"Babies and pregnancies aren't really my thing, but I'm more than capable with the routine things."

I knew Sakura was more than capable. It wasn't her thing as she said. She was better at treating injuries and broken bones never having an interest in what was going on in the maternity ward. It was all about the deadly injuries and not bringing life into the world.

"Can't wait to tell you to gain weight!"

Itachi shot up from the couch remembering he still hadn't fed me. He rushed into the kitchen returning promptly with an empty tray and a stern look.

"Who finished all the food I had made?! It was for Ino!"

Sasuke and Sakura immediately looked at each other both being guilty of sharing the last sandwich. Itachi returned into the kitchen muttering something about hungry wolves.

"I'll just, I don't know. Go any buy something to eat?"

I was out the door before Itachi returned to ask me what he could make me. I couldn't stand to say good bye to him. He was being so kind and it made me feel so out of place. Almost guilty, I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand the fact that he was that much kinder and considerate than me.

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I'm just gonna say sorry about my review responses. I'm shit drunk, I just got home and it's not even none here and it's like. I don't know, things got out of hand and wine. I had this super good orange wine that I made myself and it's stronger than usual but it doesn't taste it and its so good and I mean things happened. I know I should just go to bed but I want to humiliate myself for my readers because love you know? No? me neither, sorry.

EmoPrincess21: Oh no! That's horrible! Now I feel so bad for you, I've never had kidney stones but it sounds so not good in any way. Oh, poor you, now I'm almost sad, but you'll be fine and got morphine though I like uppers better than downers, but don't do drugs, drugs are bad. I put Sasuke baby shopping in for some comic release and him being a comic douche. I found it hilarious. Itachi is perf, he'll be the perfect baby daddy!

DeadlyPrincess17: With that review you're super forgiven! I used to do the same thing, read and not review but now I almost only write because really, in my eyes almost no one writes as good as me this makes me sound like a stuck up douche but I write what I want so yeah, but talent is another case. Rambling, sorry. I really wanted this story to drip with angst, I feel that it's getting too happy, don't worry I'll fix that soon. Ups. But I do feel bad, really, choking with tears, well I hope it's the good kind of crying.

I'm so glad you like it and you almost make me blush! I never feel like it get down enough details. Spelling mistakes! Yes! I read through my things and don't find a single thing, then I post and read it a week later. Then I find all kinds of basic words misspelled, I think I even put Itachi in a sKirt once too. English is my fifth language, i¨ll use that as my mistake.

I do love Ino as a character so much. She's so versatile and there's so much unfulfilled potential in her that I feel almost everyone ignores because she's made out to be the pretty girl and let's admit, Naruto isn't about strong, detailed and well written women. Some of the reasons why I don't really read or watch it, but that's a secret that I post publicly. I do plan on breaking her down to her very core and destroy ever ounce of progress she's made since she ended up in the hospital. Ups, spoilers? I also plan to make Shikamaru kind of a bad guy soon, so he'll have a part in Ino's demise. He'll have a reason so don't hate him too much. '

Haha, that baby will be gorgeous and I have a small section dedicated to it in chapter 23, very small but I made myself laugh writing it.

You're amazing! Thank you for this super review and sorry about my messy drunk response. Perhaps I shouldn't post this at all, but oh! What if it makes you sad or offended. You wrote this super amazing review and I fart it up by responding drunk. If it makes you better I'll give you a possible spoiler and say I loved your review so much that I'm not gonna cut the story short by killing of the baby as planned. I'm a horrible person.

Thank you for your ah-mazing review! (sorry this was long and messy)

Sweetlilly90: Ino and Itaachi are becoming so cute together in my opinion, but I'm still not sure if I should pair them up or not yet. I'm making an elders related plot twist/thickening part you should look forward to, it'll stir things up and you should look forward to it. I like to think that Ino could be poised and relaxed but we all know that's a lie. She might be a lady but not always a graceful one!


	21. Ready

"Do you think I'm a nice person?"

Both Shikamaru and Choji laughed wholeheartedly. I didn't know why they had to laugh. It was a simple question, a yes or no would suffice but I would pester them for a reason.

"You're a horrible person."

It was Shikamaru who started handing it to me straight.

"But you're also loving and patient in your own ways."

Choji chimed in to soften the blow Shikamaru had handed out. It was always like this. Shikamaru was brutally honest and then Choji wrapped me up in positive and kind words.

"I've never seen a bigger bitch than you, whiny bothersome hag."

Shikamaru placed his right hand on his tight tapping his fingers on his shaking leg.

"But no one has a bigger heart. Let's be straight, Shikamaru and I aren't easy to like, but you've always accepted us and never given us up."

So I hadn't really gotten my answer. I was horrible and at the same the most loving person. The world isn't a black and white one I had to conclude with. I could be a nice person when I wanted to, perhaps?

"What's this even coming from?"

It came from me feeling like a horrible person. From me being selfish. I couldn't say that, it wasn't something one blurted out during lunch to her two least understanding male best friends.

"I don't know, I read something somewhere."

It was vague but if I had read it somewhere it was in their eyes utter trash and a waste of letters, paper and ink. They wouldn't ask further questions.

"What even makes a person nice? It's such a stupid question, everyone is both nice and bad. Some of us are bad more often, but our good outshines the bad."

I noticed a bruise around Shikamaru's wrist. It was blue turning purple. I didn't know he did physical battle that much anymore. I wanted to tell him to be safe during all his missions, Choji too. I've had too many hospital scares to last a life time and not a day went by when I didn't worry about them when they were out on a mission.

"I'm telling the clan soon, that I'm pregnant."

Four eyes, two pairs were instantly glued on me. I hadn't had anything to do with my clan since I had stepped down after the war. I had named my replacer and never looked back. People had assumed I had stepped out and quit, simply left my clan all together.

It had hurt too much, leading and seeing all of them who were all in their own way so similar to my father. Doing what he had been doing and doing a bad job doing it too. I never got the hang of it. It was all too much to take care of. It was alliances, it was paperwork, it was board meetings, it was reports, it was internal affairs and after the war there had been so many trials and clan meetings. I couldn't do it all and faulted.

"Do you think you're ready?"

A large and warm hand was wrapped around mine. There was always worry in his voice when we touched subjects close to my father and the war. It was as if I was so fragile I would break again. That my world would collapse.

It had been years since that girl grew up, grown stronger and better. I needed to step up now. It was expected of me. I wasn't caring just for me anymore.

"It's time I step up, do what my father trusted me to do."

A slimmer and dryer hand wrapped itself around my free hand. They were always so worried about me, sometimes for good reasons and other times not.

"Don't rush anything, everything is taken care off. Don't do anything you're not ready for."

I would give it some time, see how the clan meeting would go. I had been thinking about it for some time now.

"I'll move into the old house to, the fumes in Naruto's apartment can't be good for any creature, born or not."

The boys shared a glance. I knew what they were thinking. If I had said I was going back to my old job they would have called Sakura and have me admitted. I couldn't blame them. There were many changes in a short amount of time.

I felt ready for it. I felt ready for anything that could happen now. I almost felt confident telling the Hokage just what I had gotten myself into. I felt confident that the clan would rejoice that I was bringing life into the world rather than fuss about me doing it out of wedlock.

I felt more complete now than I had in years. I was genuinely happy.

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I've finally finished the story, somehow in a way. Nine more chapters to go after this!

Emoprincess21: I can almost imagine Sasuke pestering the priest to marry them quicker while glaring at Itachi in the crowd to make sure he hadn't slipped away for a super speedy wedding in the back.

Sweetlilly90: Had it been further along the story with a bigger belly I would have made her stuck under that bed! The rest is sort of hard to respond to without spoiling everything. The last chapters are intense, that I'll say. Now I almost wish I had an Sakura-Sasuke chapter where I could explain how he was feeling about Ino, why and actually give him a point in his "battle" against his brother when he married Sakura. Oh well… Oh! And thanks on picking up on Ino not being genin, that was a slip on my behalf. I don't watch the show/anime. I'm surprised that I haven't messed up more often.


	22. A Mess

Two pair of eyes was moving rapidly, reading too fast for me to keep up. A new page was turned before the last one had landed on the other side. They had been reading like this finishing three books already and was just about to finish the fourth and last one.

I looked around the office. It looked different than when Tsunade had it. It had lost its feminine touch and it didn't reek of hangovers and drunken decisions. I knew she still worked as a makeshift Hokage, guiding and doing most of Kakashi's work.

"So to me the situation is obvious."

Kakashi slammed the last book shut and like mine, Itachi's gaze started drifting. He knew just as much as Kakashi and I would have to wait for them to tell me what the books had said about our situation. It had been mildly embarrassing explaining it.

Itachi kept his face blank and had added details I had forgotten. Thankfully the story wasn't long, but it was awkward and sharing it to someone like Kakashi. It had been uncomfortable. He knew what it had been about and how stupid we had been. We weren't hormonal teenagers who hadn't been capable of understanding consequences of our actions but we had surely behaved as such.

"Nobody in the history of Konoah has made a bigger mess than you before."

Kakashi started slow clapping while shaking his head. We had really fucked it up and even he was almost lost of words and ideas. Kakashi sent a message to Tsunade and another man asking them to come urgently.

He rubbed his forehead as we waited. He was trying to figure out some way to sort this mess out if it was even possible. There was someone who would end up losing when they had to make up some sort of deal. The elders and council members would be riding Itachi's back and my clan would be on mine. There would be a fight about this child and who it belonged to.

The older man slipped in before Tsunade. He must have already been in the building.

"This meeting will be official and recorded. This is a serious matter, but I'm sure you already know that."

Tsunade had a short walk from the hospital and she broke the silence that had wrapped itself around the room. What I was feeling at the moment was intense fear. Tsunade would possible kill the both of us. She wouldn't be as calm and easy going.

"This better be important. I have a vital operation scheduled in half an hour."

Kakashi explained to her the situation and she immediately set her eyes on me. She was judging my size before she grabbed one of the books flipping to a certain page and pushed in my face.

"You knew this Ino! You knew this very well! Heiresses and Heirs are strictly forbidden from having carnal relations because a child would cause so many problems! With your teammates, how many times haven't you been told this? Are you so utterly stupid that you thought it only went for Shikamaru and Choji? Is your brain even functioning?!"

Tsunade started trying to slap me with the book, I had to duck to avoid the book and finally she tossed it on Kakashi's desk. The man was busy writing down Tsunade's insults with a fast hand. Kakashi was leaning back letting Tsunade do his work for again. Itachi was hoping if he was silent enough she would forget he was there and played an important role in this too.

"It was an accident! It wasn't planed."

I was glad she had dropped the book because now it looked like she wanted to do some serious damage on me.

"And you say that like it'll make it better?! That just makes it so much worse! If it had been a love child we would have an angle to work out from, something to appease the crowds with."

She kicked out her leg sending Itachi's chair flying, he almost slammed into the wall with it. Damn his quick reflexes.

"So you're male after all, Uchiha?! Boning the Yamanaka heiress for fun, couldn't keep your pants up?"

Itachi was baffled. He had never been addressed so crudely and direct before. He hadn't heard a lady like Tsunade speak like that before.

"What about it now, was the sex so good it was worth ending up in this situation?"

Itachi took a bow before Tsunade before he spoke.

"No, Lady Tsunade. The act was highly unsatisfactory and not especially pleasurable."

Both Kakashi and Tsunade looked like they would die any second, both for very different reason. I was about to die too, I had on official record that I had had bad sex with Itachi Uchiha. Even the man was having trouble keeping a straight face and his face was turning red.

"I'm sorry that unicorns didn't start dancing when you finally lost your virginity. The first time usually sucks!"

If Itachi was saying we had bad sex I would have it on official record that he had been a virgin before we hooked up.

Now Kakashi actually lost it and was laughing out loud. Even Tsunade had trouble looking stern and fuming. The situation was awful, and the bickering just helped making it hilarious.

"You pushed me off."

The sulky Uchiha lip shot out. He was hurt I had pushed him off and it had probably hurt his man-pride for some reason.

"Of course, you weren't wearing a condom and I wanted to prevent this from happening!"

I pointed a finger to my ever present enlarged stomach. That much for pushing him off. Kakashi stopped laughing and Tsunade slapper her own face. They had been ready and already assumed it was my mistake. To hear that we hadn't even used a condom was beyond them and that Itachi hadn't used one was much more of a shock. He was supposed to be a genius, a flawless genius yet he was no better than a teenage boy.

"Placing blame won't help now. It won't make the pregnancy go away. What had you thought about the situation, how to handle it?"

I had run out the night we were going to discuss it and had been avoiding Itachi ever since.

"This is an uttermost delicate case."

Tsunade was right. It had been better if one of my boys had been the father, actually anybody else. It had even been better if Sasuke was the father. Maybe not for me, but we probably wouldn't have had to report it to the Hokage.

"I'm thinking a lot relies on my blood limit. We don't know if I've passed it on or not, and getting to know will take years. The child could be raised as a Yamanaka from the day it's born."

I hadn't been thinking about any of that, I had been too caught up in the fact that there even was a child. All I knew was that I desperately wanted and needed it. It was quickly becoming my life and the one thing that helped me sort everything out.

"Yamanaka?"

"There's no reason why it couldn't be raised as both Uchiha and Yamanaka. But the child will be heir to two clans, it can't be head of two clans."

I was just rambling. This was the problem and we all knew it. This was where it got delicate. It was one child who would inherit two clans and town laws was pretty strict one the subject, one clan head for each clan.

"It's only fair that the child should be a Yamanaka."

It was Itachi who shot it in. I had expected him to put up some sort of fight, not be the one to suggest it.

"I will still take full responsibility for it and I will help raise it in any way I can."

"So you're willing to give up your heir without a fight?"

Tsunade was leaning against Kakashi's desk now, much calmer. She was trying to take in everything that was going on. He was giving up the rights for his child to be the heir of his clan. His clan was facing extinction and he was giving up an heir without a fight.

"Ino is the only in her generation able to perform her clan jutsus, she's the only one able to secure her clans line, we're two on my side able to do the same. And much faster I might add. It's not about my feelings towards the child, it's about being practical."

Sasuke would never agree to this. I knew he would put up a fight, he would never give up on the only Uchiha born in over twenty years.

"Even if what you did was incredible reckless, you're dealing with it the best possible way."

Kakashi hadn't expected anything else from the oldest Uchiha.

"Just remember you have a deal to fulfill too."

Tsunade addressed her warning to Itachi and I watched him nod. Now I was left out, I didn't know what they were talking about and once again I was the only one in the room left out. I knew they wouldn't answer if I asked. This was a secret.


	23. Joy

_Hey!_

 _I've notice that there's no responses to my chapters again. Am I posting too often? There's seven chapters to go and I don't mind posting one a week or something like that? I'm open for suggestions_

 _EMG_

 _COCOCOCOCO_

 _Inhale. Exhale. Repeat._ _Try not to die._

I had expected my clan meeting to be worse. I had expected that the preparations would go better. It hadn't gone well at all. Poised and silent Yamanaka's were directing their very attention to me. I knew they knew what I was going to say. I hadn't leaded a meeting in so long.

I could remember the ease and confidence my father did it with. To him it was second nature. He was the leader type, he was strong and sure of himself.

I didn't feel the slightest sure about myself. I tried drying my sweaty hands on my pants. All eyes were on me as they as there facing me in their lotus position.

I tried to speak but my voice cracked immediately. How did I start something like this? It was obvious that I was pregnant, a few were smiling waiting for me to speak. My heart was pounding as I swallowed some water.

I sat down on the floor. We really had dwindled since the war, there were only a few ninjas left. Santa was one of them and I had trusted the clan in his hands when I stepped down. He was sitting next to me eyes down on my belly and a small smile present.

I was still trying to figure out how to break the news that everyone already knew.

"As you all know I've opened up the flower shop again, thank you to all of you that have helped."

It was better opening with something easy like this. There were clapping and big smiles. The flower shop was the pride of the Yamanaka clan and it was a relief to have it up and running. Having it close was a big defeat.

"And I'm expecting."

I had blurted it out and hoped that nobody had heard. The fact that the room went quiet once again told me that everyone had heard it. Soon everyone would want to know who the father was.

It wasn't that there was bad blood between the Yamanakas and Uchihas, it was just that they had always kept clear of each other. The Yamanakas had always viewed their mind tricks purer, stronger and better than what the Uchiha's were capable with their eyes.

The Yamanakas were more interested in earthly things and inner happiness, that one should be pleased with one self no matter what role one had in life. For the Uchiha's it was all about power and control. It was all about being best, not happy.

We didn't mix together. We were too different and now we had merged into one child that was growing inside of me. I didn't want to tell them that.

"I was hoping that the happiness that a new generation will be brought to life would outshine the fact that I'm not wed."

I nodded towards the elders in the back who started mumbling among themselves. It was still associated shame with having children out of wedlock. It was particularly shameful when you were ninja and especially if you were an heiress. I can't imagine if Hinata had ended up in this situation. Not that she ever would.

Thankfully my clan was more about inner strength and joy than nobleness and honor. Still it was a lot to ask. I knew it wouldn't happen but I could be thrown out of the clan and stripped of my role. They wouldn't do that they would perish without me. I was the only one still capable of producing children after the war.

"We want to know the name of the father, before we decide."

I had hoped they would decide before I reviled the name of the father. I hoped the child would be valued for my relations to it. There was a simple answer to the question but it would change everything, it had almost been better to say that I didn't know than let the name slip:

"Uchiha Itachi."

Even Santa moved, there were several gasps and mumbling as the elders discussed if this was a joy or a shame. I knew I could face whatever they could say or tell me. That I was strong enough for any punishment and names they might call me.

The three remaining Yamanaka elders made their way up to where I was sitting and sat down opposite me, now the questioning would start.

"What is your relations to Itachi Uchiha?"

"Good, but not romantic."

There wouldn't be a wedding and a happy ever after, but it was a good thing in our eyes. If I married him I would have to marry out of the clan since his clan triumphed mine in the hierarchy.

"Does he know?"

I nodded. I was sure they would have heard word about the scene we had caused.

"Has he accepted the paternity and responsibility?"

I nodded again. He had never tried to deny it, he had sought me out when he had the golden opportunity to let it slide and pretend like he didn't know he was the father. He had stood up and forced me to take responsibility and not the other way around.

"You're not married, how will you share the work it takes to raise a child?"

"We have agreed that we will live close to each other and he'll help as much as I see fit."

We hadn't discussed it. I was hoping they wouldn't see right through my lie, it wasn't as much as a lie as a belief that this was what he would want himself.

"Is this the subject of tonight's clan and following board meeting?"

It was and again I nodded. This was going far better than expected.

"So, is it anything else we'll need to know before we decide?"

There was one thing that would win them over no matter what they were thinking.

"Itachi has already officially turned down the child as an heir to the Uchiha clan."

The elder nodded at this information. This was a game changer and they shared a look and turned around smiling to me.

"Every child is a joy."

Once again clapping emitted from those present. They weren't in the position to turn me down anyway, they needed me and I knew they saw I was rather married and to someone else than Itachi they were happy to have another Yamanaka join them.

"How far along are you?"

I placed a hand on my stomach so that nobody else could.

"16 weeks."

"Four months? You don't look like it!"

After being allowed to move back into the house and the celebratory dinner I excused myself. It was decided that next Friday after my second checkup we would have a celebratory dinner inviting the Akimichi and Nara clan for a real celebration. I was actually looking forward to it.

I ran the whole way. I didn't know I had it in me. I was in a hurry. I knocked on the door when I found it locked for the first time. I must admit that I hadn't been there in years, but he never bothered locking it before. I knocked once more but there was no one home. I could only assume that Shikamaru was out with Temari. He had so desperately wanted to know how the meeting had gone.

I kicked a rock and started making my way to a clearing I knew to be nearby. I kicked off my shoes and dipped my feet in the water. I knew there were only a few hours before the clans meeting. I didn't have much time to waste. I didn't need to cram a dinner in so that gave me some spare time to just lay and think.

I was freezing cold when I woke up. I could already tell that it was late; it was starting to get dark around me. I quickly pulled my freezing feet from the water. My watch told me I had 37 minutes before the meeting. I should make it to the Hokage tower with some time to spare. If I was lucky I would find someone to tell about my success.

The heads of the clans in town were rushing to the meeting room. The one I had been in too many times shortly after the war. I always sat in the top left corner until Itachi suddenly showed up one day taking my place without even asking. Sometimes I forgot how much I disliked him.

It was an odd feeling knowing they were all here partly because of me. Because of my mistake. Thankfully it wasn't a trial but a meeting. I still couldn't help but to notice that it was set up as a trial. At the bottom of the room stood a table with two chairs and I knew one of them were for me.

Itachi was already sitting in one of them. A few young girls had flocked around him, representatives or they were tagging along with one of their parents. I didn't know what was so interesting that they had to hang over Itachi's desk.

I plumped down next to him without a word, my good mood leaving through every open pore of my body. I would never have men hang over me like that again.

"So I heard your aim is super good, like fantastic. So father suggested I should ask you if you know, maybe could help me practice?"

It was painful to listen to. Like he would waste his time with _children_ who spoke like that, she was fooling herself. She sounded fourteen but she looked to be somewhere between eighteen and twenty.

"Sure, I could give you a lesson or two."

"Scram off hag, he won't teach you shit, especially not what you're actually wishing because I can tell you he knows nothing about that."

I crossed my arms and watched as the women left the table to go back wherever they came from. Itachi looked puzzled, like his innocent mind couldn't understand what had just happened or mad that I had turned down a sure thing on his behalf.

"I don't want you sleeping with others, especially not making the deal sitting right next to me and your unborn child."

I whispered the last part as the reason for the meeting hadn't been exposed yet. Itachi looked at me flabbergasted. He couldn't be shocked, she was trying to get into his pants and he was already undressing.

"Oh, please, don't act."

It had been as stealthy as Naruto's wardrobe. There was no doubt about her intentions. She wouldn't be throwing anything expect maybe her hair or head.

"I just wanted to help the young girl practice."

Kakashi finally entered five minutes late and closed the door behind him. He hummed as he walked up to his chair with a folder under his arm. He put his cup of coffee down before he sat down.

Again I felt embarrassed. I had made the head of every clan in town waste their evening because I had slept with an idiot that didn't know pre-cum could pull with it sperm.

They were all here because I had sex with the man next to me.

"Right, I've called this meeting."

There were curious glances between Kakashi and us. What was the great Uchicha doing next to me and sitting at a table alone.

"Naruto, say that you and Hinata wanted to sleep together after this meeting. The only thing is that you didn't want to get pregnant… Is there something you could use to prevent that sort of thing from happening?"

Naruto turned red as did Hinata who would have probably fainted had she been the innocent participant who had been asked. Naruto started fidgeting with his fingers, a habit he had picked up from his wife.

"Eh… Sensei? We'd use protection?"

Naruto's voice was shaking and the room was quiet. The room was quiet beside the paper ball that made contact with Itachi's face after Kakashi tossed it. Itachi didn't bother dodging it, it would require more effort than to sit still and take it. Perhaps he was so used to Tsunade that he thought things would get worse if he tried to avert it.

"You see, Itachi and Ino here didn't have time for such. Probably because they're both so pretty they couldn't stop themselves. Thankfully for their child, they're pretty but sadly they're also so stupid."

Gasps and mumbles broke out through the room. The great Uchiha had knocked up a girl, one of them and there was no surprise I had ended up in this situation it was almost expected of me coming from the more free love type of clan and me having bit of a rumor.

I growled but Itachi sat perfectly still while we were on display. It looked like he didn't even notice that everyone, just about everyone who was worth anything in this town was gawking at us judging us for our mistake. I did not like the way their looks burned.

"Just thought you should know."

Kakashi placed his map under his hand and got up. He picked up the coffee cup he hadn't touched and casually strolled out of the room without another word. We were left alone. I noticed the man from earlier in the corner writing everything down again.

The meeting hadn't officially ended and people weren't sure what to do next. Itachi was staying still, the girls from earlier were sharing looks. It was the girl who had asked Itachi to train her who first approached Itachi again.

"I'll see you tomorrow outside your house, at seven?"

"Just for training."

With the hip swaging only a temptress had she walked out the room and I felt myself boiling. I had told him no and this cunt bag was still planning to go through with it thinking adding _just for training_ would change anything.

"I hope she gives you syphilis!"

After shouting that in his face I stormed off causing a scene was better than answering the questions I knew they had. It did answer one question though. We weren't together.


	24. A Life for a Life

I bowed as deep as I possibly could as soon as I entered the small poorly light room. These were the real obstacle. These were the people who could make or break my career as a mother. These were the people who had the power to change our plans. These were the town elders. Together with Kakashi they made a team of seven. This was a trial.

Itachi entered shortly after. He didn't bid the elders the same respect as I had. He once again found out that he had been placed at the bottom on the room on a table next to me. He sat down and glared at all the elders in order.

I couldn't blame him. He didn't have good experience with the town elders and last he had anything to do with them he was pleading for the life of his little brother and now he had to do the same for his unborn child. A child they shouldn't have anything to do with but he was a shinobi of the town and this was what he had been brought up to do, a faith he had been groomed into.

It didn't stop him from hating each and every one of them.

"Uchiha Itachi, Yamanaka Ino."

The lady closest to us had risen and read our names from her sheet of paper like she didn't already know who we were. Her voice was frail and raspy but it held great power. I felt something sink to the bottom on my stomach. Perhaps it was a bad idea to spend the little time we had before the meeting arguing. I would have felt better if we had spent it preparing and being on the same page.

 _It had really all started when I had seen that lady who had been flirting with Itachi right outside the door. She had just asked me why I hadn't married him now that I had a good reason and everything he had would be mine, like his title, wealth, respect and most importantly his name._

 _I had stood still waiting for her to finish all the wrong reasons she had wanted to get with Itachi and what she wouldn't have done to get in my situation, then she had threatened me if I ever changed my mind and tried to steal him from her._

 _I never got to find out what she would do to me because I lost my temper and I hit her. She hadn't been expecting it so I hit her landing the punch just where I wanted. I think even Sakura would be impressed by that punch. She lay in the ground several seconds gasping and kicking in the air before she got up and tried to punch me back. Thankfully Itachi had come before she was able to land any hits._

 _The girl had scrammed but Itachi hadn't and he wasn't happy._

"We're here to discuss a pregnancy and the faith of the child of Mr. Uchiha and Miss. Yamanaka."

Once again I noticed the small man writing. He probably knew more about me than anyone else on this planet. He had been with me for several important events. Perhaps I should invite him for the party this weekend.

The woman sat down again and there was silence. Only Kikashi scrambling through the map he had been carrying was heard. He found the papers he had been looking for and got up on his feet clearing his throat.

"I've meet with Mr. Uchiha and Miss Yamanaka earlier this week. We sorted out the biggest problems surrounding the pregnancy. Itachi has given up the entitlement as heir or heiress for his child leaving that position for the Yamanaka clan."

Kakashi sat down. I could see that the elders didn't like this. Hadn't they been so controlled I knew they would have gasped and started talking amongst themselves. I could see Itachi grinning at them all and their discomfort. Kakashi was still. He knew what the outcome of this meeting could be.

"Are you giving up the rights to your child?!"

It was a man on the corner who almost yelled out the question directed towards Itachi. He slumped further down in his chair. It was certain not out of discomfort. It was an act of smugness. It was an act of arrogance as he spread out.

"Itachi hasn't given up the paternity right to the child, but the rights the child would have within the Uchiha clan."

It was Kakashi who answered the question with a mellow voice. He too seemed to trying to be following the same tactic as Itachi but it was obvious to me and probably everyone else that he was far from confident and comfortable.

"That is foolhardy. The Uchiha holds more power and respect."

I wanted to blurt out something to signal that I was offended. Sure the Yanamaka's weren't really that powerful and had the same history, but it was also a respected and good clan. We had rose greatly after the war, but my breakdown had set us back again. Still we were a force to be reckoned with.

Itachi was tapping his fingers on the table as to entertain himself paying no attention to those who were desperately trying to gain his attention. I should have never lashed at him if I knew he was going to blow it all away like this.

" _Ino! What is wrong with you?!"_

 _I had expected Itachi to defend me from this harlot, not yell and I froze. He had actually never yelled at me, he had never scolded me for any of the mistakes I had done._

" _Wrong with me? Sorry that I don't think you should be hooking up with meaningless sluts when you got me pregnant. I'm sorry that I think it's unfair that you're dating strangers when I'm pregnant with your child!"_

 _I didn't care that the others had gathered I didn't care that they were part of this. I didn't care that everyone that mattered in town were hearing this intimate fight._

" _Ino, for god's sake!"_

 _Itachi actually sounded annoyed. I had never heard him annoyed like this. I had heard him bicker, scolding Sasuke but it didn't sound like this. There was no care and love in his voice._

" _Is it too much to ask for that you don't go out with others when I'm pregnant with your child?!"_

 _I didn't know why it bothered me so much that he was going to "train" with this girl. He should be free to do whatever he wanted. I had made it clear that he wasn't obligated to me in any way. We were quaintness who happened to be having a child together._

" _Yes."_

 _I didn't agree with him. It wasn't too much to ask. It was sane and logical. I didn't want my child to have a step mother before it was born and I didn't want to share the father of my child with anyone. I had an entitlement to Itachi. The child made him mine._

" _Then fuck you!"_

 _It was my mature response and I could almost feel the child inside me cringing and shaking its head._

" _Ino…"_

 _He was calmer now. Perhaps it was because tears were falling down my face as it really hit me that I was going to be a single mother. Single as in alone without anyone to love me, not romantically and nothing in my life would be as I had wished and planned for._

Kakashi sighed. He too knew that Itachi was blowing this. He knew that he couldn't stop the elders if they put their mind to it. He knew the possible outcomes of this meeting, he knew the laws, regulations and punishments. He knew that I wasn't far enough along for them to remove the child. They could possible kill it.

"Itachi."

It was the woman who spoke first who addressed him and finally made him look at her. She cleared her throat as if she was unsure what to do and say now that she had finally gotten his attention.

"Do you know the severity of this mess, the predicament you're in, your deal with us and what it could cost you? Do you remember what's on the line?"

The other elders nodded in agreement to her words. They had my full attention now that the deal was mention again. The one I had no idea what was about but Itachi apparently had made it with the elders.

He had promised something to them, if he didn't fulfill it he would lose something? It had to be something important to him, something that was dear to him. It couldn't be his citizenship because he had been acting under the lead of the city, but there was someone who hadn't.

They were holding Sasuke over his head. Sasuke must have been pardoned if Itachi gave them something in return, but what could that be and what did it have to do with our child?

"I'm very much aware."

He spoke slowly with a complete lack of interest. It was almost as if someone had to pull the words out of his mouth. It didn't seem like he was aware if it was Sasuke's pardoning that was on the stake. Even I felt sweaty just thinking about it. What I couldn't figure out was what was it Itachi could give the elders that was big enough for them to pardon Sasuke. They had really wanted him dead and gone so whatever it was, it was grand.

"Then you shouldn't be behaving like this."

Itachi exhaled noisily right next to me shuffling slightly. He was not pleased he had to meet with the elders.

"I behave in whatever fashion I like, I owe no one a thing!"

There was more power in his voice now and the words came rapid. He owed no one nothing, had he then made up for whatever they wanted for Sasuke's freedom. Kakashi looked through his folder again finding some heavily stamped documents. It must have been the deal Itachi had made. His eyes moved quickly and he promptly looked up again sending a wink to Itachi.

Itachi somehow had a plan, some plan to win whatever against the elders? There were too many blank spots to figure any of this out. It provided some comfort that Kakashi was in on whatever Itachi was planning but this was my child and I didn't want to be left on the outside.

The elders shared looks. Itachi who usually was so well behaved was not playing nice today. I didn't know if our fight had changed anything, if it affected him in any way. The whole thing was making me dizzy and my stomach hurt. I bit my lip trying to calm myself. I wasn't in on this.

"We made a deal."

One of the elders was holding the same papers as Kakashi had. He waved the papers abruptly and waited for a stronger response from Itachi than a tired glare.

"We want to raise this child, we want it in our care."

Now I had to focus on my breathing bending over. This was almost worse than them sentencing it to death. This was a faith worse than death. They never prepared me for anything like this in the academy. My body belonged to Konoha, but I never realized that everything my body inhabits also belongs to Konoha.

Itachi didn't even flinch. He had expected this. This was the best thing that had happened to the elders since winning the war and he knew they desperately wanted this child for themselves. They wanted to raise the perfect Uchiha and they were so sure it was within their control.

It was nothing I could do with their ruling. It was nothing I could do to protect my child and I was utterly helpless. I had no options. It was either follow through with this or kill it making sure I would end up dead somehow too. If I ran they would find me, if I refused they would still take it. I was helpless. I had no say.

Shikamaru had told me this would happen. I should have listened to him as normal, I should always have listened to him. I should have let him take the blame, we could have lived a happy life together. We could have been happy the three of us and later we could have split allowing him to find love and have children of his own. I knew we would have been happy. Now the two of us would be miserable and Itachi wouldn't care probably. He had the girl with bad aim.

"It's was an heir or Sasuke's head. For your disrespect we now want the control of the child."

We now want control of the child. We, now. I finally knew what to fill in the blanks with. A child. He had given a child for his brother's life. He had traded in his first born for Sasuke and he didn't even inform me about it, the woman who was carrying that very first born.

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 _So I guess it's settled, daily updates! So if that's too much to handle, or you have self control you can spread out your reading. I know I wouldn't have been able to… but yeah… That's me…_

 _EMG_

Goheneampong: Thank you for the compliment and suggestion.

TrapQueen1738: Thank you, they're all done the chapters!

Sweetlilly90: Yes, I like to imagine the Yamanaka's as a gang of hippies. Haha, Ino is getting clingy and Itachi is clueless, poor things. I'm starting to love Kakashi yes, again poor Ita and Ino. I really enjoyed writing this chapter with all the humorous bits. I'm thinking it'll be both Uchiha and Yamanaka, but it'll be the Yamanaka heir. It also hit me that I didn't really have Sasuke react to the whole heir thing so now I have to go back and write a part where he gets cardiac arrest, almost.

Guest: Haha, that part was easy to write, also guilty of being petty. Petty and possessive… it's a charming mix. Sadly it looks like people want the daily updates, but good news if you want you can read a chapter a week. If you have self-control.

EmoPrincess21: Kakashi is so understanding and considerate, haha! Don't worry, the kid won't be all Yamanaka.

Accasia Li: Thanks for the response!

A fan: Semester from hell? You have my deepest sympathies. This is what I'm doing to avoid course work. I'm so stressed out and far behind I should give up all my degrees and join a circus. Sadly I'm void of talents… And I'm not going to hold my story hostage, so you don't have to comment. It does make me happy, but it's not necessary. I was just wondering if a daily update would be too much.


	25. Blindspot

"No."

Itachi stood up leaning over the table resting on his fists that he placed on the edge of the table. The whole scene was intimidating. He was strong, he oozed of power and anger. He could easily take out each and everyone in the room if he wanted to. Even Kakashi knew he wouldn't stand a chance against Itachi.

Yet Itachi had a weakness. The one he had been given as a child. The biggest joy in his life. His reason for everything. What had become his humanity in a time where he had to put his own to sleep. His conscience. His only light. His happiness. His everything. His only weakness.

"If you don't give us your child you have faulted on our agreement. If you don't give us your child we will be forced to revoke our pardon on Uchiha Sasuke and have him killed before morning."

I was afraid the table he was leaning on would crack I could hear it creaking as he put more weight on his fists. This was the first time since the war that I was really afraid of Itachi. I know he didn't pose a direct threat to me but I was afraid of what he would do. They were forcing him up a corner and threatening to kill the one thing he cares about in life. It's not a good idea and the elders should know better.

"The deal was that I should father a child within five years! I have eight months left and I will father a child within the timeframe! Never once was the word Uchiha heir uttered or specified. Lay a finger on Sasuke I will have each and every one of you killed off in the worst possible way and it'll exceed every fantasy you could ever muster. Lay a finger on my child and I'm sure Ino would do the same, don't forget she's the most wicked ninja in this town and I don't think her malevolence will have any limits if she's out for vengeance. If she doesn't follow through I will, and I'll do the same if you ever hurt her."

He stood up and walked over to the door. He turned his head flashing red eyes furry apparent on his face.

"Like I said. I owe no one a thing."

I knew that was as much directed to me as the elders. I knew he hadn't gotten over our fight. It had changed everything between us.

" _If you're supposed to be such a mind reader, why can't you see what's on mine?"_

 _I didn't understand what he was meaning. I could see him perfectly well. He was cunning and manipulative but there was no vice about it. Deep down he was a caring and probably more considerate person than me. He just knew how to play people to get just what he wanted but he never harmed anyone to gain it, not anymore._

 _I had always seen him for what he was. I seemed to be the only one. He was a broken man and I had avoided him because of it, because I knew too well._

" _I do, I see you for everything you are!"_

 _I was glad the bystanders were quiet. I knew they wouldn't leave us and I knew we couldn't leave. This was something we could only do there and then. It was something that had to be done and hopefully it would clear the fog that was ever present separating us._

" _Ino, you're probably the most selfish and conceited person to ever walk the streets of Konoha."_

 _I couldn't understand where this was coming from. I wasn't selfish. I couldn't believe he was saying that and I couldn't believe that people started whispering._

" _It's only fair that I can go out with other girls so that I can get over you!"_

He left the room without another sound leaving the elders baffled reading through their copies of the contract. Kakashi had already read the copy and knew very well that it said child and not heir. Itachi was in the clear. He would father a child within a few months and Sasuke would be safe from the elders.

Me and the child was just a ploy to keep Sasuke safe. This child wasn't a mistake. It was a pawn in Itachi's game to get Sasuke. It didn't mean anything to him.

Then why had he been so mad because I hadn't wanted to tell him about the baby?

Because he needed to know he had fathered a child to fulfill his part of the deal.

Then why had he cared so much about my health and well being?

He needed the child to be healthy.

Then why had he admitted to have feelings for me?

It didn't make sense. I doubled over in my seat. I was feeling light headed. Was this how it was going to be having a child with Itachi?

I got up and staggered out to find the closest thrash can. I was hurling, and rather loudly I assume as someone came over to hold my hair. The acid was burning in my throat and tears stinging my eyes. I hated being weak. I hated having to sit there while they were trying to take control of my life and my child.

They were still in there. I knew they were talking. I knew they were mad and I knew that this wasn't over.

My hair was pulled aside shielding it from the flood that was coming up. I was handed a paper towel from a rather pale hand once I was done. I wiped my mouth and tossed the paper. A single tear rolled down my face as I let go of the trash can.

I found Sai smiling next to me. He didn't say anything first so I muttered a small thank you.

"Kiba have taught me that this is what you're supposed to do with girls when they've drank too much but you still want to go home with them for sex. Not that I would want that from you, again, right now."

I almost threw up again but I rather started laughing. I laughed. I laughed a good minute and then some. I couldn't help but to laugh at the image of Kiba and Sai teaming up to hit on women.

"He has taught me the joys of the bachelor life."

He said it in such a nonchalant fashion. He was oblivious to the fact that things like these you should never tell your ex, especially "the ex you asked to marry you but she broke it off because she cheated and became pregnant with another man and this is the first time you see her since and she's vomiting her guts out publicly".

I realized that I had never once felt bad because I had cheated on Sai. I had only felt bad that I had cheated on Sai and gotten pregnant. I wondered if I would have felt bad, if I would have told him if I hadn't gotten pregnant.

Perhaps I was a bad person.

Perhaps I was selfish.

"I'm glad you're enjoying yourself."

He nodded. And he did actually look better. I had saved us from a disaster but it didn't make what I did right. It didn't change anything. Unless I had cheated because I knew deep down that we would have been a disaster. No, still not right. He hadn't been in my mind once since I had entered Itachi's mansion.

"I liked spending time with you, but I didn't like you that way."

I nodded. The poor fellow didn't know what that way meant but neither did I. I hadn't liked anyone that way either.

"I'm happier now and cheap girls put out more than you. At least for me."

I punched his shoulder, not hard but enough to give him a little sway. I didn't put out for strangers, though all my sexual history was with all almost strangers besides Sai as the golden exception. Okay, so I hadn't known him that well the first time. I wasn't like those girls who got drunk at clubs and went home with the likes of Kiba and now Sai.

"I still have respect for you."

I didn't know what he meant by that but it made me happy. I was glad that he for some reason still had respect for me.

"Thank you, but I've lost all respect for you and your womanizing ways."

He didn't take the joke until I laughed and his face went through more emotions than it did the whole period we were going out. Who would have guessed that Kiba and his lifestyle would make someone more emotional?

"It was good seeing you and be able to confirm to Kiba that I won the breakup. He said that if you didn't get a better boyfriend, started dating someone before me, turned fat, turned ugly or looked like shit I had won the break up and it looks like I won it all."

Trying to chase Sai was a bad idea. I had should have known I would never catch that slender man being in my condition. Only he would have the nerve to say something like that to someone's face and Kiba was the only one who was disgusting enough to teach him something like that. They must be the worst couple ever.

My poor innocent Sai, ignoring the constant parade of dick jokes.

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 _Who wants a spin-off series with Kiba and Sai picking up ladies at shady clubs and general "bro-ing" it out? I don't think I would ever be able to write it, but I'd read it over and over again._

Guest: There's always a way when you're Uchiha Itachi! We don't know if they're in the clear yet, but for now it's good.

EmoPrincess21: Grumpy, spiteful Itachi with malice and an agenda but at the same time cocky was really hard until I came into it, sort of if you understand. Hope it came off believable. Downright angry Itachi in this chapter was much harder to write. Ino is not having a good time, poor thing.

Sweetlilly90: Haha, I like how your review took up basically all the issues answered in this chapter. Well, beside the baby. That's still a surprise to come.


	26. Soft Flesh

I had been a fool about the whole thing. I had been guilty of not trusting Itachi. I should have had more faith in him. We were going to be parents and we were in this together. I should have given him more slack, he was owning up to what he had done.

Still I was going to cut him lose if he wanted. I now knew what this child was to him and I wouldn't force him to take care of it, I wasn't going to force him to be a father. I would let him get what he wanted and I would walk out if that was what he wanted.

I had Choji and Shikamaru again. I knew I would get the help I needed if he didn't want it. I knew that now that they knew, they would never forsake me and leave me behind. Not now that I had come clean about how it had wreaked me. There was no way they could do that to me again.

It would all work out. I would have a talk with Itachi about what had happened yesterday, even what he had confessed. I needed to know if he was pulling my leg or if he had been honest.

I suddenly took to the left with big eyes. I didn't even knock before I entered Sakura's and Sasuke's house. Closing the door behind me I let out a scream and Sakura came rushing to see who had broken into their house and was letting out an ear-piercing scream in their hallway.

I could see her take a deep breath when she saw me. She hadn't seen me scream like this since we were teenagers and I had seen Neji kiss someone else even if I had a crush on him that he forever, sadly and thankfully would be oblivious about.

"I'm sorry…"

She muttered. She knew what I was screaming about. She had seen her enter this morning and watch them leave together. Yet she hadn't seen what I had seen.

They were all wrapped up. She had launched for his lips and I had believed that he would push her off first thing. That it was too much too fast for the inexperienced man. No. He had wanted more pulling her closer running his hands through her hair and I had heard the door close as I took a left turn. They had closed the door, hadn't even noticed me.

I let out a last scream and started taking off my shoes.

"I'm so glad this child won't be an Uchiha!"

Within the second Sasuke was also present in the hallway with large eyes on me. I couldn't blame him, I had broken into their home and screamed for a good while. It was not normal behavior but he wasn't used to any kind of behavior so it wasn't that he was reacting to.

"What do you mean not an Uchiha?!"

That was what he was reacting to. That my child wouldn't be an Uchiha, it would but not in that sense.

"The child is going to be the next Yamanaka heiress."

I hung my coat on the wall. I had decided to stay no matter what. I knew Sasuke was about to throw a hissy fit.

"No. He's going to be the Uchiha heir!"

I had once stated that it would have been better if Sasuke was the father. I revoke that statement now. It would have been a disaster.

"You can ask Kakashi to see the legal documents… no wait! I have them in my bag."

I remembered that I hadn't taken them out of my bag after we had signed them. Kakashi had found a form about disowning your own heir or heiress and rewritten it so that we now had a form about stripping your own unborn child of his or her rights to become heir or heiress.

I was almost proud to have a form made up just because of me, and Itachi.

I handed him the paper. He read through them while Sakura was rolling her eyes. He felt the stamps to check the authenticity before he read it one last time.

"That motherfucker!"

"I don't think the girl he's fucking right now is a mother."

"That fucker!"

Sakura chimed in this time and moved over to the window. I knew she was looking for any movements inside the house and I wondered if they had done the same when I had went home with Itachi because soon Sasuke was next to Sakura by the window.

"That fucker…"

This time they muttered it and looked over at me. Sasuke handed me back my papers. I had expected him to argue some more. Claim the papers to be forged or possible threaten to take me to court, rip the child out of me, place it inside him and claim it was only an Uchiha because he gave birth to it. It wasn't physically possible but at this point I didn't put it past him.

Sasuke was the first to walk into the kitchen and we followed. We made it in time to watch him pick up a bowl of fruit and smash it to the ground. It shattered and oranges, glass and bananas flew everywhere. I picked up one of the bananas as started eating them.

"Sorry, Ino."

I just shrugged. I had felt like doing the same so I couldn't blame him. I was in no position to judge had it been my home much more than just a bowl of fruit would be sent flying.

I took another bite of the banana while I watched Sasuke's shoulders rise and lower. Sakura was standing still before she picked up an orange and started peeling it.

"Fuck it!"

She tossed the peel down on the floor. It was already messy and she wanted to throw something too. Throwing orange peel on the floor wasn't as satisfying as throwing a large breakable bowl of fruit but she seemed to calm down too when she started eating.

"I should go over there and snap their necks."

Sakura spat a seed on the floor and looked flabbergasted when I started laughing picturing the grim scenario where an enraged Sakura burst in on their whatever and promptly walked over to the bed to snap Itachi Uchiha's neck.

Sasuke sat down and looked out the window and into the yard. He sighed and drooped like a bag of flour. I could hear him mutter curses again. Sakura was angrily eating an orange and I would have never believed that anyone could ever eat fruit angrily. She growled as she dried off some juice that was dripping from her chin.

"He's ruining everything."

"Perhaps it's for the best."

They were speaking as if I wasn't even in the room. They were talking above me.

"Sasuke used to have a crush on you!"

Sakura blurted it out so fast I had to replay the whole thing once to realize what she had said, one to understand it and another time to try to believe.

"I was infatuated, there's a big difference."

This time I agreed with him. There was a big difference. A crush was so much shallower and lust based, while infatuations ran much deeper there didn't have to be lust or even love related to it.

"Why didn't you hurt me those years ago?"

He had never actually talked to me about it. We had never spoken about it and I had laid it behind me. He didn't mention his time in prison and he didn't speak about the punch I had handed him. He hadn't spoken about it to me once. I assumed it belonged in his past too.

"Because, it wasn't my job. I didn't torture just for the sake of inflicting pain."

"So it was never about me?"

It had been about him. How he had been brought back by his friends who promised to protect him. He was going to become one of us again and we would let him. He wasn't going to be put to death and he still shouldn't be. He had done wrong, he wasn't innocent in this, he had hurt us all and his town that he had sworn to honor and protect.

"It was all about you."

"You should have done it."

Sakura chocked on her orange and started coughing. Tears forming in her eyes. I had to look over at her to make sure she hadn't gotten something stuck in her throat and was choking.

"You should have done it! You voted me guilty, it was your job, you could have gotten in trouble, you could have ended up on the same side of the table as me!"

I think they always knew I had left Sasuke un-scattered and we protected our own down in our bunker. They saw him daily and no one reported it because no one had thought his punishment was fair.

"I wanted you to…"

He muttered the last part thinking back to those days. I had showed him affection when I was supposed to show him the backside of his knee cap.

"I deserved it…"

"Hadn't you changed I would easily have done it."

He nodded. It sounded fair to him. If he hadn't changed, if he hadn't repented he would have deserved it according to me. He just wasn't sure if he agreed.

"Punch me!"

I didn't know where his extreme ideas came from. There had to be a family trait. I wish it wouldn't be passed on to my child.

"Have you been smoking something you shouldn't have?"

I remembered smoking and eating all kinds of things we found in the forests during the war. I had full control of what, always. I never knew my herbal knowledge would come in handy in that sense, but I think it helped my boys more than I understand. Shikamaru was constantly pestering me about something to take the edge off. I mostly reacted badly to all of it.

"Punch me!"

He said it louder this time. Something must have possessed me. I actually did punch him. Not holding back I aimed for the top of his jawbone. I hit him, his head hit the edge of the counter and he fell on the chairs as he fell down tipping two of them over.

"Ino?!"

Sakura was shocked that I had punched her boyfriend. He had been asking for it himself and I couldn't take it back now. He made it back on his feet again a red mark already forming on his pretty face.

"Again!"

This time he didn't need to ask me once more. I went for his cheek this time. Once again he was on the floor and I kicked him in the stomach when he was first down there. This must have been pent up anger on his brother and I was letting it out on Sasuke.

"I hated that you were kind to me!"

I kicked him again. I wasn't kind to him now.

"I deserved it and you robbed me of my punishment!"

"Stop it! You didn't deserve it, it would have been a waste!"

He shook his head, blood was bubbling out of his mouth. Sakura had gone back to munching on her orange. This was too crazy for her to take part in. She hadn't been there and she didn't understand a thing of it.

"No!"

I kicked him once more but not as hard this time. I knew he could take it but I was starting to feel sorry for him.

"One guy told me you opened him up and made him lick his own guts before you had sewn him shut again. All without sedative and you feed me, you let me sleep, delivered messages to and from me! You comforted me when I needed it!"

I laughed that time. I remembered that man. His blood had gotten everywhere. I didn't remember what he had done, but I think it involved widows from the war. My cases often did because it hit close to home.

"You didn't lay a finger on me; you were supposed to make my life a living hell!"

I reached my hand out for him to take. I was done kicking him. I didn't feel the rage anymore, didn't have the need. He didn't take my hand so I retracted it. He would rather lie down on his back as he was bleeding externally and internally from my abuse.

"I never laid a finger on you because you were already torturing yourself!"

"I killed him, he was dead when I left him. I wouldn't have left him alive, I wanted him dead so bad for so long."

Sasuke slammed the last standing chair on the floor as he started wallowing. One of the legs broke off and was sent flying to somewhere out of reach. He looked like a three year old throwing a hissy fit because he didn't get it exactly his way.

"You even remembered that tomatoes were my favorite."

I was now officially bothered. The man in front of me was pathetic. I knew it was much more than tomatoes. This was years, decades of frustration and sadness that had peaked when he was under my care.

I dropped down on my knees next to him. He tried to hide his face under his hand. I knew better than to try and touch him. I knew he wouldn't have liked that. Sakura was looking at us with curious eyes, just to understate it. She was watching every movement and cling to every word uttered.

"I bet you remember what my favorite color is."

"Purple, you always wear it, everybody know it's purple."

He was like a hissy three year old.

"Okay, then… I bet you remember my grades from the Academy."

"98%, 96.5%, 97.3%... yes."

He didn't bother to list all of them, just a few to prove that he still remembered. He remembers something about me that mattered to him and I remembered something about him that mattered to me. They were known and remembered for entirely different reasons.

"I cheated the living hell out of those tests just to beat you, but I guess you did too."

I had cheated once; I had a note under the hem of my skirt. It was in our first year, it was shortly after mother had left us and I had spent the whole night crying even I knew there was a test the day after. I had even admitted it to the teacher.

"Once. When mother left."

He cleared his throat. Even he knew I never spoke about my mother. I didn't know why it had become like that. Father and I had just never spoken about her since she left and she had become taboo.

Sasuke tugged at the neckline of his sweater.

"You're too kind, you're smart and you're strong. You're empathic and understanding, but I want you to be the shallow, thick, inconsiderate weakling you were. If you were you wouldn't be good enough for my brother and I so deeply hate you for what you didn't do to me."

I let out a small hah. I knew there were many who hated me for the job I had done in Torture and Interrogations. I knew they had every reason to. I knew that to us they were bad guys, we told ourselves that to justify our actions. On the other side they viewed us as the bad guys and torturing them only implemented that.

I knew moral was a lose term. I knew it was a term that would set you back and keep you up other times. I knew moral was fleeting and viewed differently by everyone. There was no right or wrong, there were actions and consequences.

I had never been hated for not hurting anyone. I kicked Sasuke again. His body was soft and not expecting it. He was wrapped around my leg and I was certain I had broken something. I had felt it but I couldn't see it on his face.

Some of his blood, drool and snot was quickly starting to dry. His tears were gone but his eyes still red.

"I hate that I owe you my life, my sanity."

He gathered slime and blood in his mouth spitting it out. Most landed on him and I shook my head. Sakura called me pig but she went to bed with this creature every night. I leaned over and got a towel starting to dry his face.

"I hate you because I wasn't able to save his."

I knew who he was talking about and I knew what he was talking about. There was no way anybody could have saved him from that. He hadn't been allowed to mourn his parents. He had to hide his feelings. The thing with suppressing your feelings is that they always showed themselves later, stronger.

This was why I had always been allowed to act out my feelings whenever I felt them. Why people never got close to me because they couldn't handle the honesty, couldn't handle my vast emotional range and rawness.

Itachi had never been allowed to act out any of his feelings. He wasn't allowed to feel them and now they busted out in their own way.

"You shouldn't blame yourself, nobody could save him."

Sasuke interrupted my halfhearted attempt to heal him with a strong hand pulling me close. I hadn't been so close to Sasuke since I used to attack him and cling to him. I could see a small scar just underneath his eye, it hadn't been there when he had left.

"You can reach him, you can change him."

His breath was hot on my face. He let go of me and I straightened my back. It felt almost forbidden being so close to Sasuke. He was someone else's now and I had long ago moved on.

"And now he's fucking someone else, fucking it up."

Sakura finally came to life moving over to her boyfriend sitting down on the other side joining in on healing him. She hadn't uttered a word when I had abused and beaten her boyfriend. She hadn't said a word, just let it happened.

She knew he could handle it, that he had needed it.

I scuffed at her comment. I knew better about his performances.

"Oh, he finished looooong ago honey."

Sakura laughed and Sasuke looked bothered. It was one thing knowing Itachi had had sex, it was another thing hearing about it and it was a whole other thing hearing he had performed poorly. Sasuke was all about family pride in all departments.

"I'm sorry, Yamanaka."

I wasn't sure what he was sorry about, as mentioned moment ago he was all about family pride. I knew it had to be about something else. Something to do with the girl with bad aim. I really did hope her aim was bad and it would result in a bedroom accident. From what I heard a broken penis was not easy to heal, embarrassing and extremely painful. Would have served him right.

"Honestly, I've never liked him."

The two lovers shared a look. I

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TrapQueen1738: Oh! I'm sorry! I don't get emails when you review apparently so I didn't respond to your review last chapter. When I saw that you had even reviewed my latest chapter, voila! Here's an make up extra chapter for being so kind, positive and for cheering me on. I hope this chapter answers some of the Ino-Itachi questions. We won't actually see him for a few chapters I just realized.

A fan: Thank you! The story is finished, so it's just the posting left.

Sweetlilly90: Itachi always has full control, well almost. Never when it comes to Ino. Itachi and Ino won the first match, but they probably isn't happy about being defeated in such a way. I guess the trust that was left is totally gone after this chapter. I had so much fun writing the Sai part, I might actually try to make a one chapter spin-off about the adventures of Sai and Neji. I also guess you didn't have to wait too long for the next chapter.


	27. Hands that can See

Sakura's eyebrows furrowed as she was holding her hand over my exposed belly. It didn't look good on the large forehead of hers and it made me worried.

I was lying on a checkup bench in the hospital having my first proper, very late and official pregnancy check up. I watched as Sakura's mouth moved and she mumbled something in concentration. She flipped her stethoscope over her head and placed the cold metal on my stomach.

She wasn't saying anything and neither was I. It could be anything and I forced myself not to worry. She had said it herself that babies weren't her thing and she was probably having a hard time or she was completely clueless.

She went into the hallway and got someone else to help her. She still wasn't telling me anything. I'm sure that she didn't want to tell me she was having a hard time not being able to do a simple check up.

A dark haired woman in multicolored scrubs entered. That told me she worked here but I already knew that. Sakura's scrubs weren't colorful and full of life. Her's were blue, void of everything. She was just there to do her job, she wasn't there to spread the same joy and life.

The woman didn't introduce herself and just placed both her hands on my belly. She gave Sakura a look, nodded and left again. I could sense that something was wrong on Sakura. She was trying to smile but I could see that it was a fake one. She was trying to keep up the act that there was nothing wrong but it was obvious.

Sakura didn't want to say anything so I still didn't ask her. The woman who was here knew what she was doing, so it hadn't been Sakura who hadn't known what to do. The woman had given off the same energy as Sakura.

Yet there was no reason to panic. It could be anything, and half of what was inside me was Uchiha and Uchiha's loved causing trouble. It didn't have to be anything too wrong. It could be something small, something that didn't have to mean anything, something that could be helped and something that could be dealt with and sorted out.

It didn't have to mean that there was any danger for the child.

I tossed that idea out the window when the woman came back with Tsunade. It wasn't something minor when she came. It was something real bad when she came. I knew that very well from all the times she helped me and I waited helplessly when she fixed up father, Shikamaru and Choji among others. I tried to get up, now I wanted someone to talk to me.

Sakura shot out her hand and pushed me down again. Tsunade just place her hands on my belly too moving them around a few seconds before she too nodded towards Sakura as to confirming whatever she had found out.

"fifteen and a half?"

Tsunade voice the numbers that didn't make much sense to me, I was sixteen weeks, almost seventeen weeks along so it wasn't that. The two other medicals in the room nodded too and panic was flooding in me. There was something wrong and they weren't telling me what. They were speaking in a code I didn't understand.

"Aminocentesis won't tell us anything?"

Sakura asked and the two others shook their heads. That was to detect abnormalities. Was my baby abnormal? Was it sick?

"I know what it is."

Tsunade guided Sakura's hands to one specific spot on my belly and she gasped. I didn't have time for this, I tried sitting up again but this time Tsunade pushed me down. She started breathing heavily.

Sakura looked at her and handed over her stethoscope.

"It's still alive."

Tsunade closed her eyes. She didn't take the stethoscope. She didn't want to hear. Sakura placed it on the bed next to me and looked away. Her last hope was gone now. If the fact that it was still alive didn't change anything it meant that it was going to die.

"What's wrong?!"

I slammed my fist down. I wanted to know what was wrong. I needed to know what so I could fix it, because I was its mother and I could fix everything because I loved my baby.

"Tell me!"

I slammed my fist again. Sakura was crying and I started too.

"Your placenta hasn't developed properly. Your child has stopped developing, it'll probably either starve or choke most likely today or possible tomorrow."

It was the woman in colorful scrubs who delivered the news. The one who didn't know me, didn't know the background, didn't know my background.

I didn't like her scrubs anymore. They were a lie. It had been better if Tsunade had told me. She was wearing white. White was nothing, white was hope you could make it into what you wanted and right now I needed some hope.

"I'll schedule a scraping for you next week."

I curled together to protect the dying child inside me and sobbed. Nobody would be allowed to scrape it out of me. It wouldn't die. I refused to let it happen. I would use my willpower to make my placenta grow. If I really wanted to it would happen. I had a strong mind, I was a Yamanaka. I could use my mind to force my body into growing it.

"Show some respect and sympathy for the woman!"

It was Tsunade that growled and showed the nurse to the door. Tsunade was bothered herself. All the trouble this child had caused only to die. It wasn't the trouble in itself, it was how the parents had coped and grown, grown to care for it and look forward to it. If it was someone in our town who deserved the joy and happiness a child brought Tsunade would have picked Itachi and me.

But we would only experience more death. Another life lost, another family member gone. This time before we got to meet it, but it was still highly loved.

Tsuande took a deep breath trying to collect herself as she watched me whimper, shake and sob and Sakura trying to look away shedding her own tears.

Tsunade had heard how the meeting with the elders had gone. Kakashi and she had been shock about what had happened. She couldn't believe him. Whatever small the chances were, it hadn't changed the fact that Itachi had put his brother's life on the line for his child.

Now it was all for nothing. It was all in vain. There was nothing they could do for the child. There was no cure. There was nothing she could do. She was always brought in as a last resort and too often she had to let everyone down. She was good, but not even she preformed miracles. Often it ended like it had today and it was like she lost a piece of herself every time. She said it didn't bother her that the pain and tears didn't get to her but it was a lie and the worst was when children died. She couldn't do anything no matter how much she wished to.

"You'll take care of her, Haruno."

She hoped that we were too caught up in ourselves to notice her voice shake and crack before she slipped into the hallway.

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Please don't hate me? There are still four more chapters to go. I'm not saying anything about what'll happen but things might happen and might not.

Goheneampong: I know, I couldn't even believe I made that happen. Poor Ino, and poor Itachi.

TrapQueen1738: Thank you, but I felt bad when I responded to everyone but you and your review was so good and kind. Hm? Does Sasuke do civil and friends? We'll see, maybe. Now that you pointed it out, this child is already mentally scared being born into that family, hahaha. I know the feeling, three-four more days and you'll have your answers. You're too kind with your words and I respond very well to flattery. Thank you so much for your reviews!


	28. From a Distance

I had eventually fallen asleep with Sakura's hand on my shoulder. It was some comfort, but most of all I felt bad for pulling her into my sorrow. That I made her part of this, made her discover it. It had made it easier on me, but I had handed that pain and some more over on her shoulders.

I was alone and covered in a blanket when I finally woke up. I closed my eyes and focused on the life in my stomach to hear the small heart beat. It was still alive, but it was suffering because of me. I had failed it and I would eventually kill it.

I didn't want to meet Sakura so I climbed out the window. It didn't matter if I injured myself anymore. Nothing mattered anymore.

I had to gather myself before I entered the Yamanaka great hall. I had contemplated telling everyone what was happening, but I didn't want to rob every one of their joy and the party. I would be strong, strong enough to spend the evening celebrating the dying child inside of me.

From my spot in the tree outside I watched people come, it was quite the turn out when all three clans were invited. I watched Choji arrive with his wife and Shikamaru who was alone. I watch their fathers smiling behind them, glad that their best friend would have become a grandfather had he been alive, glad that his clan was safe for another generation.

I eventually jumped down fifteen minutes after I was supposed to be there. I tried to slip in unnoticed but the room went quiet as soon as I closed the door behind me. When I turned around again they all started clapping and cheering.

I started crying once again and they all thought it was because I was touched, I was crying because the child we were celebrating could die any second.

I was constantly checking if it was still with me, always scared before I noticed that faint heartbeat. It was such a small body and even tinier heart. I imagined tiny hands that would never reach out for me, reach out for its mother. I cried. I cried often and was told I was such an emotional person, or that it was just the hormones. I didn't have any hormones because my body was working against me and the baby I loved so dearly.

The evening was an endless parade of congratulations. Everyone was talking about how great this was and then launched for my belly. If I had a problem with people touching me earlier I would throw a fit now so I avoided it at all cost. I avoided them mostly by having my own hand on my belly that would stop growing never to be as big as I had hoped and at the same time dreaded.

"She doesn't like anyone touching her."

It was Shikamaru who came up behind me telling his father to pull back his hand. He started laughing and looked over at me.

"You know. Your mother was the same way. She always claimed that you were just hers, your father would protest and say that you were their daughter. She would answer him that he had to prove that once you were out."

Shikaku laughed wholeheartedly at the fond memories that must have been flashing through his mind.

"He did, more than my mother."

There was almost bitterness in my voice, sharp enough to stop Shikaku laughing. He realized that this was the first time he had mentioned my mother since she had disappeared. It felt to him like the time was right now, now that both my parents were gone.

"Why don't we go out for some fresh air?"

It was Shikamaru's offer and I knew very well what fresh air meant.

"Shika, I'm pregnant and I don't want to second hand smoke with you."

"Oh, don't you know that…"

Shikamaru stopped his father with a look and dragged me across the room and out the door. He let go of my hand once we were outside. It was getting later and the sky had turned red and white as the sun was setting and night was about to enter.

"I'm sorry about that."

I didn't respond to him. I didn't know why he had dragged me outside. I saw his hands leave the side of his body a couple of time before something terrifying happened. His hands did leave the side of his body and he took two steps towards me before he wrapped them around me.

I struggled against him but he wouldn't let me go. Shikamaru Nara was finally after so many years the one to hug me and all I wanted was for him to let me go. I didn't want his hands around me. I didn't want anyone to touch me at all.

For a second I dreaded that Sakura had done something stupid like telling him. I knew she desperately wanted but I also knew she didn't want to risk her job. She knew I definitively would do everything in my power to get her fired. This was too big.

So it couldn't be that. I almost waited for him to whisper something horrible that he had lung cancer or something like that. Wasn't his father about to tell me that Shikamaru had quit smoking? It would explain his constant hand shaking, fidgeting and generally bad mood the last month.

He finally broke off the hug and instead put but hands on my shoulders. He smiled ever so slightly but to me he looked miserable and tired. More tired than he did during the war, more drained than after an intense battle.

"Temari is pregnant."

I bit my bottom lip. He wanted to wait. He had been speaking about years. This wasn't the plan and I almost feared that he had rushed into this because of me, to keep up tradition that would be broken just because he wanted to keep it.

"And we found a house."

"I went by your place not long ago, you weren't home."

It seemed so shallow now. That I had gone by his to tell him about my victory because I knew he would be happy for me but he would also keep me on the ground. He would have made me better prepared for the meeting with the elders. Nothing of that mattered anymore.

Shikamaru ignored me and suddenly he couldn't look me in the eyes. His hands dropped now that he was sure I wouldn't leave before he got to finish. He hadn't dragged me out here to tell me that he was going to be a father. He wasn't here to tell me good news.

"We found a house in Suna."

It didn't matter that I would lose my child. We wouldn't create a new trio anyway. Shikamaru was breaking up two generations. It was painfully obvious that this could have been an all three of them are becoming parents party. I had been watching the smile on Choji's face all night but he's too kind to break the news because this was supposed to be my night.

I tried to listen for its heartbeat. I was searching for it but when I couldn't find it I dropped to my knees. I tried listening for it but it wasn't there.

"Ino?"

He dropped down next to me. He placed his hand on my back, I barely felt it.

"SHUT UP!"

It was just as much to me as it was to him. He froze and I tried to calm my head. They had said it could happen today, but that it would happen during the party was ironic. If he hadn't quit smoking I would have asked him for a cigarette, or maybe not since that would lead to questions and I wasn't ready for that. I wasn't ready to tell everyone I had killed my baby. I wasn't ready.

I wasn't ready to tell anyone. I wasn't ready to explain what I had done. I wasn't ready for it to die.

I covered my ears with my hands trying to keep my breath steady when I heard it. That small heartbeat. I moved my hand over to my tight and tapped out the beat. It was a heartbeat and it wasn't mine.

She was with me, I was certain she was a girl. She was still with me and very much alive.

"Ino?"

Shikamaru had gotten back on his feet unsure if he should go get anyone.

"Don't leave me."

He didn't sigh when he sat back down. He didn't complain that I was throwing a fit. He was just uncertain how to deal with it.

"You can't leave me."

It was wrong of me. I was selfish. Even in this situation I was only thinking of myself, but also Shikamaru. I knew he would never be happy in Suna.

"I'll need you."

I was about to lose my closest family again and this time I knew I couldn't do it without my boys. I would lose too much of myself this time to deal with it alone. I needed them to be with me through this.

"You have Itachi."

I shook my head. He wouldn't help me in this. He would have to cope with it himself. He would need Sasuke and Sakura like I would need Choji and the man in front of me. He couldn't leave me, not now. Not when I would have to worry about him too.

"You'll patch things up again, sure it feels awkward now."

He had clearly heard about our fight and that was no surprise. It must be the talk of the town only making it harder when people would ask about the pregnancy and with time the missing child.

I would bury her next to father so that she would have her grandfather to play with her and teach her whatever she needed to know where she would go. She wouldn't have to be alone like I would be.

"No, I'm going to lose the baby."

It was a whisper and now I could hear Shikamaru push out all the air in his body. He was used to teenage Ino throwing fits similar to this when she didn't get her way. He was used to me being overly dramatic to force him to change his mind.

"Get a grip, Ino! That's sick! I'm not going to change my mind, Temari wants this."

He got up on his feet thinking I had crossed the line. Nobody likes dead babies.

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Ups, now I'm posting twice a day… ups?

Sweetlilly90: I guess Sasuke can be a sweetheart when he needs too. I really wanted Ino to kick someone's ass in this story, it seemed to me as if she needed it and who is better to beat on than Sasuke? I'm almost mad at myself about putting in the bad aim girl, but I felt that it was needed for some reason.

That'll come the following chapters, to some degree so I won't spoil it for you. The placenta not developing is rare but it happens sometimes, often if the mother has diabetes, high blood pressure or conditions related to blood. I feel so bad for Ino too especially after this chapter too.

TrapQueen1738: I know, not the baby! I'm a horrible person, no, yes, no… Hope you'll enjoy the remaining chapters!

A fan: I know, I feel so mean doing this to a fictional character. I'll take it as a good sign though. Also, please don't die. That would make me real sad.


	29. Don't Leave

He hadn't let me explain and he hadn't stopped when I begged him too. He had left me alone again. All I was left with was the small steady heartbeat that could go missing any second. I would be left alone.

I was alone now. All I had was a heartbeat.

I dried my tears and entered again. Shikamaru had gone to his father again and they were talking among themselves. I wondered if Shikaku knew and what he was thinking about his only son moving. You couldn't run a clan from another town. They wouldn't perish like the Yamanaka clan might, but he was trained as an heir. It was his duty.

I went over to the one that could cheer me up. He was sitting with his wife eating with that big grin plastered on his face. I plumped down on the free chair by the table.

I smiled at Karui, his wife. She seemed to be glowing like I hadn't. She was handling it better than me. I felt like she was more woman than me, she didn't have problems producing children and her body would never kill the child she was carrying.

"Congratulations are in order."

Choji stopped eating and looked over at me surprised. He looked around to see if there was anyone close by or if he was free to speak. Karui pretended like nothing while her husband looked slightly surprised.

"Did Shika tell you?"

I shook my head no and Choji started looking around the room again.

"My father or mother?"

I shook my head again and he once again looked surprised.

"It's so obvious, I saw it on your face."

"Well, we couldn't let down the Ino-Shika-Cho tradition."

"It wouldn't have mattered."

I blurted it out before thinking it through and Karui looked almost sad and Choji looked over at Shikamaru showing the he already knew. Shikamaru was abandoning the both of us, perhaps I wouldn't be all alone this time.

"He'll be back."

I had a feeling if Shikamaru was allowed to go he would never be back. He wouldn't return so we had to stop him before he ever left, or I would allow him to slip out off my life for good.

"I don't think he will."

Karui looked like she agreed with me but she didn't want to let her husband down.

"I don't think I'll miss him and I'll certainly not run after him when everything blows up in his face in Suna."

Choji turned around and looked at me. His teammates were fighting again and he would most likely be forced to be the broker again. He would listen to both sides, how inconsiderate Shikamaru is and how immature Shikamaru thought I was. It wasn't the first time he had fought, but it might be the last time.

"I'm glad I never fight with any of you."

He should be. Both Shikamaru and I fought dirty and we would have crushed him the first insults we hammered him with. Choji was more fragile than us and that was why we were the perfect team. It would have been a disaster without him. We wouldn't have been anything without him. Team 10 would thrive without Shikamaru. We would flourish. The reminding half of the team could do without.

"You're too kind to fight with."

I pinched his cheek and giggled. Karui joined in on the laugh. She was lucky to have landed the kindest husband to ever walk this planet. Choji was even kinder than Itachi. My laughter died out. I didn't want to think about him, I dreaded telling him. Perhaps I should move with Shikamaru. Never return to this place.

I twirled my hair around my finger. I was glad I hadn't invited him tonight and I hoped nobody else had. He hadn't originally been unwanted. Originally.

I got up not sure where to go next. There weren't anyone I wanted to talk with, there was no one I wanted to see at this party. I just wanted to go home and rest. Take my goodbyes alone.

I checked to find my keys in my pocket. Santa had made a big deal about handing them over to me. Said they had a surprise waiting for me when I got there. He hadn't given any hints as to what, I just hoped it wouldn't be baby related but it was natural to think that it was.

I headed for the doors again when I saw Choji's grandmother make her way over to me. She was probably going to try and touch my belly and tell me it was too small and suggest something I needed to eat to gain weight and grow strong. I didn't need that tonight.

The temperature outside was still good. It wasn't too cold and the short stroll over to the house was pleasant. I could still hear the music and chatter when I reached it. They would probably keep going until the morning and it could take hours before they know I was missing.

The door unlocked and I slipped in. The hall was empty of shoes and jackets. I knew all my possessions were packed away and stored in the basement where father and I would plant seedlings every spring and wait for them to grow strong enough to be planted outside.

There wasn't anyone planting anything here anymore.

I hung my jacket in the closet and entered the hallway leading to the living room. I removed the plastic covering the couch and sat down. I remember how happy I used to be when dad allowed me to eat my dinner in the living room. I felt so big and grown up then and I was terrified of spilling anything and if I did he would never yell but help me clean it up.

I got up before I would fall asleep. I knew there was nothing to see in the kitchen so I went up the stair to find my bedroom.

I opened the door only to find my bed missing. It had been replaced with a crib. A small crib with yellow blankets and a small teddy bear holding a red rose.

"Please stay with me."

I addressed it to my stomach. I knew it wouldn't change anything, but I would never give up hope on her. I would never stop believing she would come out soon enough to join me on the other side of me, join the outside alive when the time was right.

It was too dark in the room to see it all and I felt that the crib had been enough for tonight. I had expected it to irk something inside of me but I was blank. It didn't stir up anything but a question I knew the answer to.

If my bed was missing, where was I supposed to sleep? I knew the house had more than two bedrooms but they were occupied with other things. Only two of the rooms had ever been used as bedrooms so that meant that I was to sleep in the room at the bottom of the hallway. That was my father's room, but I would be the parent now. So they thought.

I turned and walked down into the hallway. I stopped at the bottom looking at the door. I hadn't been in there since father died. I hadn't dared because everything in there was him. It was his room and I wasn't allowed to enter when he wasn't in there. It was where he kept his memories, clothes, things he didn't want me to find but I had no problem finding.

It was his.

I couldn't go in there. I knocked and waited. I knew I would never be told to enter. I waited. I waited but there was no response. I couldn't go in there.

I walked downstairs and lay down on the sofa after brushing my teeth in the kitchen sink. I still hadn't turned on any lights. I was afraid I would see his ghost if I did. I was afraid I had disappointed him in every single way because I had done nothing of what he had wanted me to. I had failed and let down everyone that had ever cared for me.

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TrapQueen1738: I know, even as a writer I'm not liking where this is going. If that makes any sense to you? Probably not, but I'm glad you're still enjoying it.

Emoprincess: I wish Shikamaru would listen too, but yeah, it just had to be done that way. I know, it must take a lot to be part of that celebration. Itachi will know soon enough. Glad to see you again by the way, I was starting to miss you. Hope you're doing better!

Sweetlilly90: I know, that must have cost her so much. I felt horrible writing in the heartbeat parts, it was almost touching. I actually had this whole part with Shikamaru and why he was acting this way, but there wasn't enough time to put it in, so he's that way for a reason. So far it's only the medics that know about it, Itachi will know soon too.


	30. Move (on)

The beating had almost put me in a trance when I had first woken up. I didn't know for how long I had been awake. I didn't really know how much I had slept. I was cold and shivering but I didn't do anything about it. I felt as if I moved something terrible would happen.

So I lay there.

The house was quiet. I can't remember it ever being this quiet when we lived there, father and I. There was always some sort of sound. A watch ticking, water running or someone rummaging through cupboards looking for food.

Now it was quiet.

I wanted to sleep, but sleep wouldn't come. The sun was rising so I would have to get up soon. There was an empty void inside of me. It was as if I was only my skin, empty on the inside beside that little heart beating. That little heartbeat that made my mind vibrate with each beat.

 _What do you think makes you feel this way?_

 _I don't remember much of my time after being released from the hospital. I remember begging Naruto to let me rent his apartment because I couldn't live at home. It wasn't right living in that house meant for a family when I was all alone. It was too big for me alone and no one ever came over. It was just me_

 _It was a constant reminder of everything wrong in my life. It was where I was constantly reminded of what I named "The Before."_

 _The Before the war, The Before daddy dying, The Before death, The Before pain and suffering, The Before inflicting pain and suffering on others, The Before losing my friends, The Before I was all alone, The Before._

 _I had been appointed someone to talk to me. She was someone who was supposed to guide me through my experiences of the war. She had seen many other soldiers, she had heard of our suffering but I wasn't like them. My pain wasn't just the war._

 _I remember that her hair was originally red, but then later on she dyed it almost yellow. It didn't suit her. It didn't look good on her at all and it was all I could think about during our sessions._

 _She couldn't understand my responsibilities as a clan head. She didn't understand how I was failing them and letting everyone down. She didn't understand when I told her that feuds were a common thing in my clan because I wasn't a direct leader that took responsibilities. She had suggested I should let them sort out their own arguments and that was the worst advice ever._

 _When I talked about losing Choji and Shikamaru she told me to harvest those feelings and experiences and use them to gain new friends. This time I would know where I went wrong and I would be able to stop it._

 _I hated her._

 _But for a long time she was the only one who spoke to me. Sakura tried and I liked having her there. I liked when she told me about how happy she was and how things were progressing between her and Sasuke. I liked it when she told me about something she had heard or learned at work._

 _After a while I think she became guilty. That she was happy when I didn't even leave the apartment._

 _She too stopped coming and my therapist was all I had left. She was the only one that would speak to me and I needed company even she didn't understand me and gave me all the wrong solutions to my problems. The only thing she understood and we both agreed on was that I was sick._

 _I had let everything I once had slip from my grasp._

This time it would be different. This time I would take control before it was too late. I wouldn't lock myself in and I wouldn't be abandoned. I would take control this time and I would start with Shikamaru. I would stop him from moving. He couldn't. He belonged here with us, he had nothing to do in Suna.

Rolling off the couch I cracked my bones and quickly realized I hadn't brought anything to change into. Last night's dress would have to suffice.

I quickly found myself in familiar tracks. I idly wondered how many times I had walked over to Shikamaru's house. There were too many times to count. It wasn't until I stood in front of his door I remembered that he didn't live there anymore. He had moved out after the war when he had started going out with Temari.

"Ino!"

I looked up to see Shikaku running out the door and come to greet me. He took my hand and pulled me into the house. It had been years since I had been there. I used to be there almost every single day and now I realized that it was years since the last time.

I dropped my shoes by the door and followed Shikaku to the kitchen. We had a good tone, but we didn't normally speak and especially not since my father had passed. It had taken away his reason to talk to me, especially when I stepped down as head of the clan.

He quickly started preparing some tea for us and signaled for me to sit down.

"Believe it or not, but I was about to go and see you."

I wouldn't have believed him if I hadn't seen his eyes. I imagined they looked somewhat like mine, hurt.

He put two cups on the table and sat down waiting for the tea to boil.

"Shikamaru told you?"

I nodded feeling slightly uncomfortable in this situation. I hadn't the slightest idea what Shikaku wanted from me. I didn't know why I was sitting here as he served me tea.

"It's too much to ask, but only you can stop him."

I put the cup back on the table. Shikaku had never asked me to do anything before and now he was asking me to stop his son from leaving him.

"I can't understand what's causing him to leave? He told me at the party."

The fact that Temari wanted to move back home was understandable. I would have wanted to be in my hometown to have my child too, but Shikamaru had so much here. He had his job, his friends and family. He was heir of the clan. He would lose so much and she had already broken ties when she moved here in the first place. It was almost as if she had forced him. I knew he loved his hometown like me and I knew where his loyalties lay.

"I don't like that girl of his, I never have, but I couldn't say anything."

I had only met her a few times. I had always been jealous of her for stealing Shikamaru from me. For replacing me. Shikamaru and I had never been romantically involved, not since we were eight and I made him practice kissing with me.

I didn't like Temari either.

"Something is off with her, isn't it?"

I had a habit for disliking people, especially those I hadn't grown up with. I couldn't help it. I could always find flaws in others, it was because I'm so flawed myself that it was easy to recognize it in others.

"He can't move, I told him. If he leaves tomorrow I'll have to strip him of his title as Heir."

I coughed. That was a serious threat. I can't remember the last time something like that had happened. Shikaku really didn't want his son to go, didn't want him to move away from town. I understood him, as I had already been thinking; you can't run a clan from another town.

"He won't be back if he first moves."

Shikaku nodded his head agreeing with me. Shikamaru wouldn't come back if he left. It wasn't only because he was too lazy to make another move. He never gave up on anything, besides his town, family and me.

"Temari already moved last week."

I looked out the window. I could see his house from where I was sitting. There were no lights on, it was still early to him. He normally wouldn't be up for a few more hours.

I didn't know if I would be able to stop him, but I had to try.

"I'll do everything in my might. You know, he was the first one I told."

Shikaku looked over at my small belly. It felt right telling Shikamaru first because I had always considered him to be a constant in my life. Someone I could always count on. I had made many mistakes in my life and I'd be damned if I made the mistake of letting him go.

"He offered to take the blame so to say, offered to raise the child as his own."

Things would have been so different had I said yes. Things wouldn't have ended up like this had I agreed. We would have been happy together.

"I wish it could have ended different for the two of you, that the rules were different, that you could and…"

Shikaku stopped. I knew perfectly well what he had wanted; I knew perfectly well what he wished for. It could never happen, no matter what. It was too much of a risk and strictly forbidden.

"We used to make fun of your father for having a daughter."

I knew that perfectly well. I had heard them tease him several times but my father would never be bothered. He wouldn't have traded me for any son in the world. I wouldn't have traded him for anything in the world either.

"I would have never done that today."

Suddenly Shikaku's face changed. He his face told of regrets, longing and yearning for his "The Before." I knew I would have that same look with time if I didn't have it already. We were both victims of wars and had experienced what loss and sacrifice meant.

"I'll do my best."

I took off leaving him alone with his memories and worries. It seemed like he needed to be alone and I didn't think I could hear about my father. I was in a delicate shape and I felt like I could shatter at any moment, or the exact moment her heart stopped beating.

I knew he wouldn't open so I picked his lock. It was too easy and he hadn't even bothered putting up traps, or he had removed them. All I could see were boxes. Boxes containing his life and his memories that he was running away from.

I knew very well where he was sleeping and barged in. He scrambled some under his covers before he pulled them further up trying to hide. I lay down beside him and he made a small jump when he realized that it was me.

"You can't be doing this, you can't leave."

Shikamaru rolled over on his back numbly looking at his ceiling. He wouldn't be getting anymore sleep now that I was there. There was never any sleep when I was around.

"It's already decided."

It wasn't too late to decide otherwise. It wasn't too late to change his mind.

"You hate Suna."

He had told me several times. Even went as far as claiming to do me a favor by not inviting me to his wedding in Suna. It was the worst place in the world, the food was worse than my cooking, the people dafter than Naruto and more stuck up than what Neji had been and had the emotional range of Sai. Not to mention that they all smelled like Kakashi had at the end of the war.

"Temari wants to be close to her family."

"What about your family? I know your father is taking your title if you go."

Shikamaru looked at me surprised I had known. It meant that I had talked to his father before coming to him and he didn't like it. He had never made his father cry. He had only seen him cry once in my father's memorial.

"What about your job, your career, your friends, me?"

He was looking back up again now. He knew he was letting us all down and I couldn't understand why. The covers slipped as he inhaled and I noticed a large bruise on his collar bone. I would have offered to heal it hadn't I been mad at him. It looked sore and raw.

"It's not that easy."

Everything had always been easy for Shikamaru. He knew what he wanted and he didn't dance to anyone's flute. He was his own man, sure he considered other's feelings and such but he had always known what he wanted and never made sacrifices of this proportion.

"It is."

If he wanted it to be.

"It is if you're selfish and inconsiderate like you. You're going to be the worst mother ever in existence."

I didn't know why he was attacking me like this. I didn't think he was capable of saying something like that, of hurting me in that way. It was a low blow, a fatal blow. He had never said anything close to this awful and I was just trying to prevent him from doing the worst mistake of his life.

I slipped out of his bed. I would let him go after all. I wouldn't fight for him. I would hope he would rot in Suna.

"I told you, I'm going to lose the baby. Sakura was the one who found out and Tsunade confirmed. My child is either going to suffocate inside of me or starve. I might just do the same!"

I stormed off. He didn't even look at me as I dashed out off his bedroom. He didn't stop me. Didn't say a word. Didn't react to me losing my child. He didn't care.

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Sorry about the delay in posting, I went traveling yesterday and things ended up taking much longer than planned. I will post the last chapter sometime tonight unless something comes up.

Emoprincess21: Glad to hear that you're doing better, and hope you all had a good day! I know, it seems so unfair and I feel guilty about taking this turn in the story. I'll definitively check the story out. Oh, haven't you noticed by now that they're all crazy? Haha

TrapQueen1738: I hope you're not too disappointed that everything is crumbling down around Ino, even if I'm the writer I am a tad bit disappointed. I'm so strange when it comes to my writing, but at one point I have the whole thing figured out and I just have to write it out even if I don't agree with myself.

Sweetlilly90: A sweet guy like Choji has to have a sweet wife! I had this whole sub-plot plotted out with Shikamaru, but I unfortunately don't have time for it. This story really has taken a turn for the bad, but there's a reason I tagged it as an "angst" story.


	31. Back to being Strangers

It was odd he had thought that Sakura had pestered him about seeing Ino. It was odd that it had been so important if he had talked to her the last few days. He didn't know about her appointment the next day. That she was to have their dead baby scraped out of her body. He didn't know that she had lost their baby.

Sakura couldn't tell him. She knew she would lose her job and that Ino would be out for blood. It wasn't for her to tell anyway. He needed to hear it from Ino. Only she could tell him.

So after breakfast he had gone to see her. He went to Naruto's old apartment to find a note that she had moved back to her childhood home so he went there.

He found the door open but the house empty. He still went upstairs to make sure she wasn't there. Make sure that the elders hadn't slit her throat or anything. Not that they would ever dare.

He didn't find anything unpleasant, but he had found the nursery the Yamanaka's had set up. Seen the old crib he assumed Ino had used to sleep in. Seen the teddy bears and clothes in the closet and he had flipped through the family album that had been thrown carelessly on the floor.

Ino had been a plump baby, much larger than he could remember Sasuke being. He had seen her mother disappear when Ino was around five or six. It was just her and her father and the two children he recognized as her former teammates.

He gently put the album down in the crib and went looking for Ino.

He was positive he sensed her, positive that it was her. She was doing a decent job hiding her chakra. She didn't want to be found and he understood that. Still he couldn't believe it, just where he had found her.

He looked at the large red door, it had to be red. It was leading into the only sex club in Konoha.

He would have to enter and see who of them had lost their mind. Only Shikamaru knew that she went to the sex club when she had hit bottom. It was the only place she could be alone, it was the only place no one would bother her. If by any chance she met someone she knew they would never talk to her.

After losing her father and the war she went there to try to feel something. Hoping that what she would see would irk some emotion out of her. It never did but she still tried.

He couldn't be wrong when he saw her moonlight blond hair on the right side of the stage. There were three other gents in the room but what Itachi noticed and was most happy about was the empty stage. They hadn't started yet, it was pretty early, too early to have started or they were between performances.

She didn't flinch when he sat down next to her. She just popped some more nuts in her mouth and offered the bowl to him. He declined and she sat it down again so she could pick up her drink glass.

He couldn't smell anything so he assumed it was just water.

"Sakura suggested I should talk to you."

She had been waiting for him to show up. She was surprised he would enter this place, but she wasn't surprised he had found her. She wasn't surprised Sakura had told him to find her either.

He looked at her belly expecting it to have grown since last time he saw her. She was still small. His mother had hardly been showing until the last couple of months. Ino would soon be halfway through her pregnancy now.

She would have her child late summer right before fall came and Sasuke would officially be safe. It had been the only reason he had slept with her he had told himself several times over and over again. He had been watching her ever since he found out that she despised him. He had come to know her. Where she worked, who she had relations with, what she liked and what made her laugh.

He had approved of her. She was the best match for him and he had come to learn how to play on her feelings, her sympathy and her kindness.

He had gotten what he wanted but he was afraid she would never forgive him for what he had done. He had used her in the worst thinkable way. If you boiled it down to the core he had gotten her pregnant without her consent so that he could be able to save his brother.

It was despicable of him.

And to do it to someone like Ino.

He would suffer the consequences of it now. She was cold and distant. She didn't emit that glow that usually made him tingle and want to smile. She hated him now and she had grown cold. He had heard that her friend and possible love of her life had moved out of town recently.

Right after she found out Itachi's original intentions with her, it must have been a big blow.

So now she was hiding out in a sex club the fourth day in a row.

He couldn't say he understood her and that she didn't offer him any surprises. He would never be smart on the mystery Yamanaka Ino. She hardly ever made sense or acted logically. She was a creature driven by emotions and it attracted him because he had never been allowed to act on his emotions and she let them control her life.

He wondered if he should comment on the strange place but he was sure she had a reason for being there. It could even be a reason related to her emotions.

"I had a miscarriage."

This caught his attention. Ran the soundtrack of her timid voice over and over again. Miscarriage.

He looked away from her and on the stage. It had been over thirteen weeks and miscarriages seldom happened in the second trimester. They were in the clear and then she had lost their baby.

Panic and pain hit him.

This was a disaster and shook him badly. Sakura had known, so Ino would have known for over a week and she hadn't told him. Again she hadn't told him and it angered him. She had already been dealing with it for a week and he had just been told. In a sex club none the less.

He signaled to the bartender to bring them two shots. That wasn't insensitive? She could drink now, if not he would gladly drink both.

"I'm sorry."

He was sorry too but he could only assume that she was feeling guilty. The baby had been inside her, but he knew it wasn't something she had caused. It wasn't something she could have done to prevent it and it was still haunting her.

She was certain she had lost her mind still hearing and feeling it. She was actually glad they would remove it tomorrow. She would finally have some closure and start her healing. Though she could never heal and recover from this. She was so looking forward to this, to having a family and someone to love again.

"I know about your deal, but I'm sorry. I can't do this again."

She had been considering it. It would benefit the both of them, she had wanted to become a mother. She couldn't, it was too soon. It would be taunting and disrespecting the memory of her daughter.

The bartender placed their drink in front of them at the table. The bartender had hardly time to put it down before Itachi had swallowed the content of his in one gulp. He would start from scratch and not even that would save his brother. His timeframe wouldn't measure up starting anew now. There wasn't enough time and he had angered the Elders.

Ino tipped her glass over once again refusing to accept anything from him. The vodka spilled down on her black midi-skirt and she didn't seem bothered. Not even when the alcohol stench hit her nose.

"I think it would be best if we went back to how thing were before that evening in the bar."

She stood from her seat. She wasn't suggesting they'd go back; she was informing him that she would.

She took a long look at him on her way out. He was handling it well, too well. She felt sorry for him, she really did. She wasn't good for him and he wasn't good for her. It didn't matter what they felt for each other. The door to whatever could have been was closed now.

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I know. I'm horrible. I know. You must hate me right now.

I said, I wouldn't kill the baby. I never wrote that it was dead and gone, heh. I'm so clever! Who knows, it might be dead or it might be alive. That's for you to decide I assume.

I might be inclined for a sequel if you ask nice. I won't promise anything, but if there's enough interest.

Thanks to all of you who favorited, followed and for all your reviews. Especially thank you to _**Emoprincess21, TrapQueen1738**_ and _**Sweetlilly90**_ for so diligently reviewing.


	32. The Living and the Dead

Fifth letter.

 _Come now, there's a danger to your life._

I hadn't read the rest. I had avoided the hospital and everyone that worked there. I had avoided everyone and no one had missed me. I had been gone for over a month and not once had someone missed me.

I knew this time what was happening. The heartache that was consuming me was a well known foe.

I was lying on my back in the nursery. I hadn't been able to remove her. I knew it was in all cases bad. I knew it was unhealthy in more than one way. She was my baby, my dead baby and I was hanging on to her. The only thing worse than carrying my dead baby was the idea of removing her.

Still I was certain she was still with me.

I had picked out a casket to put her in. They had sent a pamphlet with different models from the hospitals. I have seen many caskets in my life, but I didn't know they made them so small. I had gotten permission to bury her in my father's grave. It was all taken care of. All she needed to do was to come out.

I got off the floor. Had to use the bathroom. I had covered the mirrors in the house. I had noticed now that I was getting thinner my belly seemed to be getting bigger. I couldn't stand to watch. I couldn't be reminded.

I washed my hands and slowly brushed my hair. I didn't know what one should wear to these sorts of things, I had never heard about the proper scraping outfit. Was it okay to wear color? It didn't seem right and I found a black shirt and skirt.

I had wanted to invite Choji to bury her. I hadn't seen him the last three weeks or so. He had been happy and I still hadn't told him. I couldn't when he was so happy thinking we were going to be parents, the three of us and that Shikamaru would eventually come back.

Karui had casually commented that I was so small yet. Choji had followed saying it was funny that I had stopped growing now when I had started showing so early. It wasn't their fault, they didn't know. I had declined their invitations twice after that and it was all it took for them to forget about me. Team 10 wouldn't thrive without Shikamaru. We weren't a team anymore. We hadn't been in years and it had never been so clear to me. We had just been fooling ourselves.

I hadn't seen Itachi either, but I decided to swing by him before I went to the hospital. I wouldn't allow him to come with me, but if he wanted to he could help bury her. It was only fair, he was the father no matter how I wished to change that.

I locked the door behind me and wished it could for once rain. I couldn't remember if it had rained since the day Itachi found out he was going to be a father.

I found my way over to him. I knew before I knocked on the door that he wasn't alone.

"Ino?"

Sakura seemed more surprised to see me than I was surprised to see her. I had for a second feared it been the girl with bad aim, I should have sensed that it was just Sakura.

"I need to see Itachi."

I didn't have the energy to be friendly with her. I didn't come to socialize.

"I don't think that's a good idea."

Her brows furrowed and she spoke slowly. It was then I really listened and I could hear him talking in the background. The sounds were emitting from that room.

"He's been there for a week now. He doesn't do anything, but we still keep watch."

Sakura looked tired. They were keeping guard on Itachi as he inhabited that room and that little world of his. He must have gone deep into it this time. I heard him laugh then something hit the floor. The doors were ripped open and he exited.

He hadn't left the room in the last week. If I thought Sakura looked bad it was nothing compared to what I saw now. His hair was hanging flat, his skin was gray and eyes red. Naturally red, irritated and dry from lack of sleep.

He came over to us on wobbly legs and grabbed my hand dragging me towards that room. Sakura grabbed my other hand trying to stop him. It didn't work and he was pulling the both of us with ease in his condition even with Sakura struggling. I let him take me to that room without a fight.

"Itachi, let go of Ino!"

Sakura sounded strict like a mother scolding her child for taking yet another cookie when they had agreed that two was enough.

He let go of me mumbling. He went over to a box pulling out a pillow.

"Let's see, mother, father, baby, me. Yes, next to me, opposite mother and next to baby if she needs help."

It was then I noticed the table set for three, but there were an extra pillow on the edge. He grabbed my hand again obviously wanting me to sit at the table set for the dead.

Sakura tried pulling our hands apart and he finally seemed attentive of her.

"Separate Ino and me and I'll kill you."

It wasn't an empty threat, a kunai was present in his hand. He was going to do what he wanted. Sakura gasped and instantly dropped our hands. Without further ado he forcefully pushed me down on the pillow he had placed on the floor. My knees landed with a thud and I knew they were going to bruise.

"Ino, this is Fugaku, Mikoto and of course you know our baby."

He looked down at my stomach and it seemed like he stopped functioning. He looked over at the edge of the table and down at me again. It wasn't right in his mind either. I wasn't supposed to be this big.

"I'll be fine, find Sasuke."

I knew Sakura was terrified. He hadn't interacted with any of them. He had never addressed them, not even Sasuke had gotten a reaction out of him. Sakura had turned around and started running as fast as her feet could carry her.

"No mother, we aren't having another baby."

Itachi laughed filling what would be his father's teacup. It was already full and spilled on the table.

"We aren't having another child yet, baby is still so small."

He looked over at the edge of the table with a smile.

"Father, you can't say such. You can't ask why Ino why her belly is so large and her body skinny."

Then there was silence where the ghost responded to what Itachi was telling them. It wretched my heart learning that yet another person had joined the table. Baby. He had dubbed our child Baby in the lack of a better name.

"No mother, she isn't."

Itachi again looked at the edge of the table then down on my stomach. He shifted in his seat before he turned towards me and pushed my back down on the floor. My head hit rather abruptly and bounced. He didn't have proper control of his body.

I was glad Sakura had run. I was glad she was gone but I knew she would be back with Sasuke. I didn't know what they would do or what they _could_ do. My guess was that I was almost as dead as his parents. I could be very soon too.

"You can't be, Baby is already by the table."

If he became violent it wouldn't end well. It would be a disaster, he could kill someone.

He placed his head at the top of my stomach and listened to my insides. He placed his ear directly bellow my belly button. He lay there a few seconds before he looked at the table again.

"No, Baby is there. Baby is inside of you."

I was almost regretting not having the scraping. Still it sparked a wonder in me. He was certain she was alive too.

"They say it's dead."

Itachi was listening to my stomach again and I felt it tighten. He measured my size with his hands. He got up and packed away the pillow put out for Baby.

"It's alive."

He was back with his head on my stomach again. I let him; I figured it best not to disturb him. I hadn't forgotten how quickly he had turned on Sakura. So I would lay there and wait for her to come back.

He had pulled my shirt up when Sakura came back. I could sense five people, Sakura, Sasuke, Kakashi, Tsunade and Naruto. They were standing still not sure how to react to the sight. I was lying with my back with eyes closed, but they knew I was perfectly fine.

"Itachi, how are you feeling? Have you been sleeping?"

It was Tsunade who tried speaking to him first. He ignored her like they had been warned he most likely would do.

"Brother."

Sasuke took one step forward.

"I'll was going to make a place at the table for you too, soon, but not yet. It won't happen yet."

Sasuke had been told about the deal the day Itachi was told about my miscarriage. He took the news surprisingly well. It had been worse on Sakura. She and Naruto were looking for a solution. Never would they give up on Sasuke. Not like my team so easily would give up on me time after time. They would never give up on him, forget him and leave him alone to die.

"Not yet, you shouldn't be here."

Itachi looked over at him and shook his head. It was too soon. Sasuke was still alive and he had nothing to do in here.

"I don't think Ino should be here either."

He grabbed me this time and pulled me closer to him. I just lay limp as a doll in his arms. I didn't bother adjusting my position. If my arms were free I would have pulled my shirt down perhaps.

He didn't say anything but it was clear that he disagreed with his brother. He wasn't going to give me up.

"Baby is in her, a little princess."

It must have affected him heavily that I had walked in with the passed baby. It must have shaken him up. One thing was seeing his parents another thing was having the actual corpse in your possession.

"We talked about this, the ghosts are only in your head."

Kakashi's words might have been insensitive but he was trying his best.

"The child died too."

I shook my head at this. The others didn't know what I was playing at. I rolled around in his arms and gave him a hug. I pulled him close ignoring the fact the last thing I wanted to do in this situation was to hug him. He was disgusting.

"But I'm so tired, and your bed is so hard. Will you join me?"

I got loose from his grip and got up on my feet. He nodded and grabbed the hand I held out. The crowd in the doorway moved as I guided him out of the room. They followed; they followed us all the way to his bedroom and watched as Itachi started undressing and folding his clothes.

He went over to his dresser ignoring the audience. He found a shirt that he tossed to me. I hoped they looked away as I started undressing too but I knew they weren't. A small blush was swarming my face. I was glad my back was facing them so that I couldn't have Sakura comment on my awful stretch marks at a later point but I guessed she had already seen them.

Itachi was waiting for me in bed and I lay down in the same spot I had last time. Naruto was unsure what to do but he turned off the lights with a shaking hand.

We spoke seconds before Itachi fell asleep. I soundlessly slipped out of the bed, I pulled my skirt on and brought the rest of the clothes with me.

* * *

I actually tried to let it just be finished, especially since everyone seemed sort of okay with the ending thinking it was for the best that the baby died. Still there was just so much I had planned that I never got the time to write in, so I'm not done after all. I do have a lot planned so just sit back and relax. I want to thank you for all the reviews. I was terrified there would be riots with the ending I first wrote, but you crazy turds seem to have enjoyed it surprisingly.

It'll be hard responding to your reviews without spoiling everything, but I'll give it a go!

TrapQueen: I know. I hated the whole miscarriage myself, I still just had to put it in. I had the idea starting the story, and I changed my mind several times. The child would eventually learn why it was created yes, and I don't think that would be a too good thing to learn. Yes, it's already been hinted at that the child would be under pressure and be viewed as some sort of tool by others. Hope the sequel will measure up to your expectations.

Is there any story in particular you'll like to wink at? I'm soon on holiday so I'll have time to update my stories in general soon.

Sweetlilly: Ino was definitively used in one of the worst possible ways, no doubt about that. He had tons of other options that tricking someone innocent end I hope that the first last chapter (? haha) served as a karma reminder. He lost everything. Ino will always find a way to grow stronger and should be doing it without him, but will that be possible after what happened between them? I do have a feeling Shikamaru won't get stuck in a sand storm, haha.

blubb: Wow! This was an interesting review. I hadn't been thinking along those lines at all, something that's really odd because I do love myself some character death! Her life is beyond bleak right now, worse than it has ever been. She was used, she lost everyone around her again and she had lost the one thing that could have in some sense have saved her, her child. Choji is fleeting and Sakura only sees what she wants to see yes. She does have anyone to count on and confine in, meaning she has all her feelings bottled up.

I've been hinting to what Shikamaru's problem is throughout the story and even in the scene you're referring to. Very subtile hints so I understand why no one has picked up on them yet. It'll be a chapter or so devoted to it in the sequel. I'm for some reason so pleased with that sub-plot it's one of the main reasons I couldn't let the story rest.

I was going to save the why didn't Itachi xxxx, part for later in the sequel. You're right he could have easily have done it, he could have even lied saying he was using protection. He'd really do everything for Sasuke. One of the reasons he picked her was because he had a feeling she wouldn't lose another (possible) family member after she lost her father. The papers were real though.

I tried my best answering your questions, or tell you that they'll come up. I still like the idea that she decides to end her life. I really like it and might do a double ending, that I'm so good at. Thanks for the idea and hope that you'll enjoy the sequel and that it'll answer your questions.


	33. Violence and Medicals

I knew all eyes were on me as I moved along the hallway while getting dressed. I soon made it over to the door. I didn't want to get sucked into him and his condition. I had made it clear to him that we were strangers again so I kept my eyes away from the crowd behind me.

"Well, I'll see you around."

I was slammed into the wall and once again I found my head bouncing on a hard surface. I muttered curses under my breath. I would perhaps, maybe have stayed had they just used their words.

"You're bleeding from your head."

It was Tsunade who spoke and I was certain she was the one pinning me against the wall. I was certain my meeting with the wall was enough to make me bleed but it turned out that it was the back of my head.

"Sakura, check her hand."

I felt a light pinch on my arm. I knew what she was checking, I had done that small simple test often during the war when access to water was limited.

"This is bad."

I heard Sakura mutter behind me. Sure I would sit down and have a glass of water if that was what they wanted. Anything to let me go, I wanted to leave. It wasn't like I didn't know I was dehydrated and was once again starving myself. It wasn't like I was able to keep anything down even if I actually tried.

"You're so foolish."

Her grip tightened and tears were forming in my eyes.

"I was on my way to the hospital."

My head was pushed against the wall again. I if wasn't already going to the hospital I was starting to fear that Tsunade would send me there. I felt a small contraction in my stomach again and sucked it in as I gasped.

"Ino, how's your eating?"

I tried to remember the last time I had eaten. It had to be two days ago when I had some toast and banana, with caviar but I would never admit to the last bit. Fish anything was bad enough on its own and even worse so with the sweet banana, well it should have been.

"Okay, so maybe it isn't perfect."

"Sakura, do you have any of your nursing equipment at home?"

"I kept it here, in case. "

I was lifted from the ground and I started kicking in the air. I was glad I wasn't pushed up against the wall anymore but rather that than being airborne. I was picked up and pushed in Kakashi's un-expecting arms.

"Take her to the couch."

I didn't know what was so urgent I couldn't walk to the hospital. Sure it was a distance to get there and it was unusually hot outside, but I didn't show any danger signs. I read my body well and knew how far I could push it.

Kakashi carried me as if I was a log and promptly dumped me on the couch. I "humpfed" and blew some hair out of my face. I didn't want to stay here longer than needed.

Tsunade and Sakura returned with a big bag they dumped next to me.

She quickly scrimmaged through the bag to find measuring tape. She yelled out my measurements and Sakura scribbled them down in a small notebook.

"Haven't been drinking, haven't been eating, haven't been to your doctor's appointment."

Tsunade slapped me square across the face. I felt my head forced to the right as the sound of skin connecting with skin erupted through the room. I could hear the guys scuffle in the background happy not to be in the receiving end.

Sakura dived down into the bag and found a cone. I knew what was in it. The most horrid tasting thing known to mankind. I had spend far too much of my life surviving on that liquid. When the war had ended I was certain I would never have to taste it again and now Sakura was handing me one with a smile even.

My cheek was burning and my jaw felt numb. I opened the cone and prepared to drink the nutrient drink. I coughed and felt tears rolling down my face up after swallowing the first mouthful. I wasn't used to this anymore.

"No one in this room feels sorry for you, it's all your own fault."

Tsunade was all about harsh love. Everyone in the room did actually pity me and to some degree she did herself but she would never admit to it.

"You should have a guardian or something to take care of you, foolish girl."

Tsunade found a stethoscope while Sakura guided me to lie back down in the sofa as soon as I had finished that horrible drink.

Tsunade tried listening to my heart through the fabric of my shirt but she quickly gave up after moving the stethoscope around. She pulled my shirt up and I would have felt embarrassed hadn't the boys already seen me undress earlier.

Okay, that was a lie. I was embarrassed as the three of them were gawking.

"God, it's not a show!"

I yelled out and the two youngest had the decency to look away but Kakashi was enjoying himself too much apparently.

"They're so big and creamy."

I would have tried to cover myself if not the most violent medical in the history had punched her former sensei and blocked his view.

"That's actually kinda gross."

Sasuke muttered with a faint blush covering his cheek bones. Sakura gave him a look telling them another comment meant another punch.

"Sakura…"

Tsunade called her over again handing her the stethoscope. Sakura placed it in her ears and started listening. I was worried until I saw a smile light up on her face.

Again Tsunade was in the bag looking for something and not even I would have dared to have nightmares about what she brought out. It was another drink and I was about to protest but the look on her face told me to drink it in silence.

"Sasuke!"

Sakura winked over her boyfriend to listen too. One by one they listened as I drank that horrid drink in tears. No one deserved to drink two of those in a row. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy and having the group hovering above me listening to something odd didn't make me any less tense to put it that way.

"Are you going to start eating now?"

I knew what the honest response was, but I knew enough not to tell them. It was too much of a bother to make that many meals and to do it every single damned day. So I slowly nodded my head. I didn't want to be assaulted once more. It was more than enough for one day.

Tsunade then finally handed me the stethoscope. I listened to my own heart beat and then I picked up on a much smaller heart beat and I jumped up. It was the heart beat I had been hearing all along. The one I had deemed a pigment of my desperate imagination.

"You'll hear it better if you place it here."

Sakura removed the metal from my heart and placed it right bellow my belly button where Itachi had been so intently listening. She was right, the sound grew and I closed my eyes with a big smile on my face. She was still with me. I had known all along, I wasn't crazy.

Yet I had treated her like shit.

My eyes opened again and I saw Tsunade somber nod so I lay down once again. The room of smiles had turned grave. They all knew probably what I had been, or more like what I hadn't been doing ever since I was told it would die.

Sakura tried to bury a finger in my hips and I tried to get away. It kind of hurt.

"She still got some to go."

I knew why they weren't looking at the baby. I too was afraid of what they would find. Tsunade nodded when Sakura commented that I still had fat on my hips and I remembered. Fat on the hips were the reserve, where the body stored energy for cases like these when a woman was pregnant but for some reason wasn't eating enough.

I would even have a third drink if that helped the child inside of me. I would drink all the nutrient drinks in the world but I knew it wouldn't help if it was too late.

"It has a strong healthy heart beat."

Tsunade convinced herself and placed her hands on my stomach. She had to be professional in this; she couldn't be scared of what she found out. She quickly made sign for Sakura to do the same.

"The Uchiha's must be the most hardheaded, most stubborn and clingy creatures to be alive…"

Sakura giggled and gave me a look.

"I think the Yamanaka's and especially Ino gives them a fair competition."

If I hadn't been so overwhelmed I would have thrown an insult back at her. I didn't, I lay still looking into the ceiling emotionally drained after this day. Emotionally drained but filled with happiness that my child was still with me.

"So it's alive?"

Sasuke asked taking a step towards the girls. This was his life too.

"It's small, it's thin like its mother. Other than that it's in good health it seems."

Tsunade got up on her feet and smiled to the boys. The child was still alive. She walked into the kitchen and got two pans. Nobody had the slightest idea what she was up to besides Sakura who was still sitting on the ground with her hands on my stomach.

She walked over to me and slammed the pans together making everyone in the room jump, including the baby. I could feel it jolt as did Sakura as well.

"It's responsive."

Poor Kakashi was clutching his sweater and looked like he had soiled himself. I let out a laugh. It was good knowing now what that feeling had been. It had been my child moving around inside of me, alive.

"Want to know the sex?"

Sakura looked at me with wide eyes and a smile perking up.

"It's a girl."

She quickly placed her butt on the floor and looked away from me again.

"You're no fun."

Tsunade slammed the pans together once more when no one was prepared. I heard someone scream and assumed it was Sakura but she was surprisingly calm so I looked over at the boys.

It looked for a second like Sasuke and Naruto were trying to climb each other. I didn't know who had screamed but I had a feeling it had been Sasuke. I wanted it to have been Sasuke.

I got so caught up in the two of them that I almost forgot to feel her move inside of me.

"She's very active, must have enjoyed the meal."

Sakura smiled before she removed her hands and got up. I replaced her hands and slightly felt her movements under my skin. She was alive and literally kicking.

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TrapQueen: I'm starting to fear that I'll never be able to put this story away. Glad I shocked you in a good way! And thank you for the compliments! They keep me writing and mean a lot to me.

I-heart-Sesshomaru13: Glad you're glad for the update!

Sweetlilly90: You're spot on again and very observant! I do really feel for both of them in this story. I really want them to end up with each other, but I don't see it happening as the situation is right now.

ShikaIno1: Glad you're happy with an update. Life isn't easy being Ino in this story, I for one feel sorry for her. Hope the sequel will clear your confusion and answer your questions, if not, feel free to ask!


	34. Stay With Me

He had slipped in without a sound. We had gotten too caught up in the moment to consider that he was sleeping. I guess the loud noises had waked him up when he entered with slow and weak steps. He was resting against the wall looking at all the people in the living room. Confusion painted his face.

Sasuke walked over to him, a bald move because no one knew what state he was in and how he would react. Itachi put an arm around his shoulder and was helped over to the free chair in the living room. He still hadn't spoken and the tension stopped everyone else from doing anything.

His hair hung long and dirty as his head was starting to sag. He straightened and rubbed his irritated eyes knowing it would only make it worse.

"So no one is going to tell me neither why my living room is full of people nor what the commotion was all about?"

Sakura finished putting the rest of her equipment in her bag and moved it over to Itachi in the chair. He was quick to remove the flash light Sakura was about to point on his eyes and she gasped. I could notice Sasuke tensing too ready to jump in to any situation. When Sasuke reacted so did the others.

"What is this all about?"

"Don't you remember?"

Itachi shook his head at Tsunade's question. He didn't remember a thing, he was struggling but he couldn't figure out how he had ended up in bed with such a crowd present in his house.

"You had another episode…"

Kakashi approached him and put a hand on his shoulder as support to his friend.

"I've been under a lot of stress lately."

"We're here because you threatened to kill Sakura and took Ino hostage."

His eyes shot open and he finally looked over at me. He had hurt someone, he had always kept to himself when he was sick. He had never caused anyone harm and Sakura and I were among the last persons he wanted to hurt.

"I see, it's gotten worse then."

He said it casually. No one had known at that moment that he was thinking it would be best if he was dead and gone. If he was dead he couldn't lose control and hurt anyone. He knew very well what could happen if he lost control. It wasn't a life to live. He'd constantly fear that he'd hurt someone, and if he did he couldn't live with himself. He had already hurt someone, he hadn't inflicted any lasting injuries but he had threatened.

He looked over at me wondering what could have possible made him kidnap me, he didn't know I had willingly come to his house. HHHHHHssssHe didn't know either that he like me had been handed a reason to stay.

"I think it's time you get professional help."

"Yeah, I don't think Ino will show you any mercy if not!"

Itachi looked at Naruto before he looked over at me. I wasn't about to say it. I had meant it that it was better that we went back to how things were before we got drunk. Before we were going to have a child. I would at best be civil against him, but that would take time. It would take time because nothing was like it had been before we met at that shady bar. Then again, a child would render that impossible. I was once again tied to Itachi by blood.

"I don't see any reason why she would."

I scuffed. I had been around enough men to know what kind of act this was. He was admitting all faults making him seem humble and a victim. This enabled him to shift focus on what he had done over to the fact that he was admitting guilt and regretted whatever he had done.

I don't think any amount of admission of what he had done would make up for it.

"Don't be too hard on yourself."

Kakashi tried supporting him letting me know he had turned one or more over. I would soon be the bad guy for not forgiving him.

"The child, it's still alive."

Sasuke wasn't going to wait for me to tell it. Itachi closed his eyes again. I know that he had known in that room, but he claimed to have no recollection of it. That was what he was telling us now.

"You're right, Ino, my bed is too hard for one person."

"Too bad I'm not as kind as you then, because I don't give a shit!"

I tried getting up. I didn't want to stay there any longer than I had to. I would go shopping then go back to locking myself in with minimal to no social interaction before I had to work.

Tsunade pushed me down again and I was almost transported back to that day in the hospital. I would lay still and wait for her to speak.

"Yamanaka, you're so vain and foolish! With the heat of the summer and your low weight I can guarantee you that this child will be premature. The best you can do is to keep it inside for as long as possible. That means no work, no moping alone. You'll be on bed rest."

I didn't want to have a premature baby. Sure they were able to save very premature children today with our good medics, but it wasn't something I wanted for my child. There were dangers associated with premature birth and she was already in enough danger.

"Do you have anyone to take care of you in your home?"

I shook my head. I had no one like that. I had no one willing to take care of me. I was alone. Shikamaru and Choji had promised to be there every step of the way, but I couldn't ask this of Choji alone. I knew he would have done it, perhaps.

"She can stay with me."

There was no way I was going to stay with Itachi. I couldn't stand the idea, it made all the bile in my body boil and I was about to run.

"No, that's a horrible idea."

Tsunade had shot it down. She must have known our history and his psychotic breakdown hadn't made thing better to say the least.

"You'll upset her too much risking the baby's health further."

"She can stay with us."

I would have never guessed that Sasuke would volunteer to let me live in their house. Even Sakura seemed surprised that he would suggest something like that, and without asking her too.

I didn't know what I felt about the idea. I would have to go with a no if had to go with anything. It would be havoc. Sasuke only wanted to hear things that pleased him and Sakura only saw what she wanted to see. I could almost imagine her sending me over here daily to ask Itachi to borrow things or inviting him daily for dinner.

"No."

Tsunade shot down the second offer and I was mortified that Naruto or even worse Kakashi would offer to take me in.

"I'll be fine on my own, and if not I can hire a sitter for myself."

I took a wild guess that Umeko would be up for the job, as far as I knew she had lost her father to sickness and her mother in the war so she didn't have any familiar obligations. She would like earning the cash and to stay in my house. It would work out.

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EmoPrincess21: I have a (bad) habit of doing this. I'm also excited that things are finally looking up for Ino!

TrapQueen: I know! Just imagine Itachi with a pink little baby princess. Tsunade is all about though love, they were all secretly pitying her. In secret because as you said, she wouldn't have liked it. I guess you know what happened when Itachi woke up. I've finally finished the story now, for real this time… But only sort of, I've already planned a follow-up/Spin-off.

ShikaIno1: Glad they're answered and as always I do always love your reviews!


	35. Hormones

There couldn't be a logical solution or explanation to what was going on. Some would claim hormones but it didn't cover this amount of crazy.

I was meeting with Itachi to discuss parenting, what he should be part of, what he wanted to be part of and how we were going to separate the work.

There had been something about the way he smelled, the serious look on his face as he tried talking to me about child birth, if I wanted a natural birth, if I wanted him in the room or even at the hospital at all. All the while he was taking notes with a content, but stern, focused and serious look on his face.

I had offered to let him go, I had told him I could take care of her all but he wanted to be part of it all and it left me biting my bottom lip.

I had wanted him shortly after we started discussing, nothing emotionally or anything. It was a physical attraction if not craving. Halfway into it I tried something purely desperate.

I tried seducing Uchiha Itachi.

I had deluded myself that such a thing was possible. No matter how many times I flipped my hair he wouldn't look at how pretty and shiny it was. No matter how many times I giggled he didn't seem to enjoy the sound. No matter how much I bit and puckered my lips he didn't seem to want to kiss them.

It was hard too, trying to be seductive and sexy. Not only was I pregnant, but he was also trying to discuss how this human would be leaving my body.

"It's awfully hot in here."

I pulled my shirt further down exposing the amazing cleavage I had gotten. I grabbed his spare notebook and started fanning myself with it.

"It's the middle of summer, it's supposed to be hot."

He hadn't even looked at me. This was hopeless trying to get him to notice my suggestive behavior. I needed to go more drastic to work.

"Ino, is you leg itchy? You're rubbing it against mine."

That daft bastard. Was he teasing me? You never know with this man. He could be innocent and unaware of what was going on. Still, he could be teasing me. I knew he loved pulling my leg literally and figuratively as he might be doing now.

"So, if you, sorry the insensitivity, were to die in childbirth… Would you be fine with me having full custody?"

I sighed and pushed the chair further away from the table. I didn't want to discuss matters of life and death right now.

"Why don't we do something fun, it's too hot for business."

He looked down at his paper hoping they would bring me back to my chair again. He still had so many more question to ask, he was just getting started. He wanted everything planned down to the smallest detail.

"It's going to be chaos when she comes, all this won't matter. Why don't we enjoy ourselves?"

"You're acting strange."

I had bent down slightly and was adjusting or more removing some of the wrappings around my legs. I still wore them sometimes out of old habit. I was glad he was catching on to me behaving "strangely". I jumped up on the table close to him.

"Am not!"

I leaned over and poked him with a finger, retreated and bit my lip. When that didn't get a response out of him I let my head fall back and my hair started dancing from the motion.

"You definitively are, are you that hot? Should I get you something cold to drink?"

I let myself fall down on the table. This guy was clueless. Beside one thing, I certainly was on fire, but not in the way he was thinking.

"Tsunade said to drink plenty."

I started pulling my shirt again. I didn't want yet another Tsunade said, you were told, you should -speech. I had heard enough of them already.

"I assumed you hated me because I dated other girls, I assumed you would want this over with as fast as possible."

I gritted my teeth. I was wondering if the moment had passed. He wasn't dating, he was sleeping with other girls, or maybe just that one. From what I had guessed on Sakura's face and her avoiding the subject and to answer my questions at all costs I guess he still did.

I got off the table and grabbed my purse.

I wasn't going to stay here any longer. It wasn't like I couldn't get him to bed, I could seduce any man I wanted. It wasn't that. It was just the idea of the two of them fornicating made my stomach fill with bile.

"That doesn't stop me from wanting to fuck you."

I think he was too baffled to follow me to the door.

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EmoPrincess: Yes, I too feel sorry for Itachi. No doubts about that!

I-Heart-Sesshomaru: Thank you! I feel honored to be your exception. I'm guessing it helps, despite of this chapter, that it's more of an Ino and Itachi are happening to be expecting a child together rather than them being together.


	36. Fighter

I waved to Sakura and Sasuke who was out in the garden gardening. Sasuke had put on a hat but he was already burnt on the tip of his nose. That would be hurting when evening came. Sakura waved back and seemed to be getting up, I didn't stop but rushed to the gates.

I wasn't in the mood for Sakura's antics right now. I wasn't in the mood for anything but a bath maybe. I pulled a bottle of water out of my purse; it had already become warm under the sun. This had been an unusually hot summer and I still hadn't ruled out the theory that I had somehow killed myself without remembering and ended up in Hell.

I dropped by the flower shop to find Umeko and Chika from my clan working today. Umeko was braiding Chika's long blond hair when I entered. Oh, how I had missed that small bell that went off whenever someone entered. I had been banned from working; it was too much stress Tsunade had said. If it had been up to her I had been chained to my bed all hours of the day.

The clan had been quick to offer to help out in the shop now that I couldn't. I had mentioned closing it in one of your weekly clan meetings and it was almost a riot among the calm, cool blonds. Things had calmed down when I had said it was due to baby related health reasons.

The few who had been able to have volunteered to take shifts that fitted their schedules. Chika had been one of the first to sign up. Normally she worked in clothing store, but she had asked for Thursdays free and admitted that she had always envied me for getting to work in the flower shop. She was happy to help and so were all the others.

"Ino!"

I smiled picking up some purple and white orchids. I couldn't remember ever selling orchids and why wouldn't we?

"Oh, I hope you don't mind me ordering some!"

Umeko was quickly by my side with a guilty smile on her face. I didn't mind at all, I even decided to bring some with me home.

"No, not at all. They're beautiful."

I took in their faint smell and Umeko smiled proper smile now. She looked almost proud that I had approved of her actions.

"I love them, but mother was allergic so we could never have them growing up."

Perhaps that was why we hadn't had them either, that father was allergic. Though it hadn't been listed in his files, every allergy is listed in our files. Nothing is kept secret.

I often forgot that Umeko had lost her mother during the war. From what I had heard she was a retired shinobi but had fought when the town was attacked. I was envious of her; she had a mother that had died not only for her hometown, but also for her daughter.

I know father would have given his life to keep me safe, and in essence he had. Still it was different when a mother did it. I couldn't pin point how, and the sacrifice wasn't any less. My mother had abandoned me, she had never loved me. Must have been why I reacted so strongly to the topic.

I paid for the flowers and walked the rest of the way home. I took to less traveled streets to avoid people. I wasn't feeling like myself, and I wasn't. I would never be the old Ino again. I had changed these last couple of months and I would never be the same.

I would never be able to live like I had, my body was changing and I continued to do so. It would never be the same again either.

"What's with the gloomy face?"

I stopped dead in my tracks. I had been too occupied with my own thoughts I hadn't noticed I had almost bumped into someone.

"Ibiki…"

The familiar name rolled so easily off my tongue.

He offered me a smile waiting for my response that wouldn't come. I didn't have the power to utter what was wrong. Neither did I think either of us had the time. There was so much to talk about.

"So, how is it going?"

His eyes were on my stomach but he had the sense not to try and touch me. Ibiki understood me. He knew me.

"She's kicking me, constantly."

He laughed, it was a light chuckle.

"Wouldn't expect anything less from a Yamanaka."

There. I was reminded that this man was probably the one closes to my dad beside me. They had worked together for years, talked together, laughed together, shared stories together, sought comfort and advice. He had probably heard of most my mischief as a child. Tried to comfort my father when I was acting up and crossing him, which was often. Laughed at my petty problems and consolidated my father when I learned about the opposite sex and became a teenager he couldn't control.

"I guess it's payback from what my father had to go through."

"I guess it is."

I rested my hand on my stomach that had started growing again and Sakura had warned me that it would only get worse now that I started my third trimester.

"You've always been a handful; you kept your father at his toes. He'd be proud if he was here, he was always proud of you. I know you don't agree, but once you're a mother things will change and you'll see for yourself."

He moved over to the wall and sat down on an empty crate belonging to some restaurant we were behind. I strolled over and sat down on the slightly lower one and rested my head on my fist. I had always been a handful for everyone who ever happened to cross my path.

"You're one of a kind."

"So are you."

Ibiki shook his head disagreeing. He wasn't anything special according to him but I would never meet anyone who could even compare to Ibiki. A good thing that was.

"No Ino, no matter how deep you down you go, how high or far you're tossed, you always get back up again. You always survive; you always get back on your feet."

Ibiki seemed almost touched by the moment and I could feel the baby kicking. She was probably responding to my fastened heartbeat and Ibiki's voice.

"I never understood the term survivor. Never understood what a fighter was. When I found you that day I was certain you were dead, or were going to die. I never saw it coming."

Ibiki had never uttered a word about his one visit to my old home. We had never discussed it. There had never been a reason for it. Frankly I was embarrassed to be found in that condition. I felt bad he had to experience that that he had to touch me. Yet I knew it was nothing compared to what he was used to, Ibiki wasn't faint hearted.

"I didn't see it, and I'm supposed to be able to read everyone."

He placed his arm on my shoulder, grasping it, hard.

"It had been so long, I thought you had recovered. I should have never recruited you. You were too young, too emotionally bagged."

I placed my hand on his. He was wrong about everything besides not being able to read me.

"I would have done it all over again, it gave my life purpose and it was just what I had needed. It made me feel close to him. To sit in his office with our picture on the desk and his scent on the chair. I think he would have protested, put up a fight but secretly be thrilled that I was following in his footsteps."

The grip on my shoulder became harder and I almost jerked away. I would suck it up, I needed this as did Ibiki. He had suffered so much because of me.

"… I think you're right. I still blame myself for what happened to you. I should have let you go, I should have but you were so good and I think you became my replacement for him…"

It wasn't until he was gone I really understood how many and how deep roots my father had in the town he died protecting. I never knew just how well respected and well liked. I never knew just how much. Almost every shinobi had something good to say about my father and I could never measure up to that.

"I'm a pale imitation. I'll never be anything like him."

Again Ibiki laughed, but this time it wasn't a hearty chuckle. It was a sad hollow one.

"Don't you know what they're saying about you, Ino?"

I had a feeling rubbing my swollen belly. I couldn't think they're saying anything good about me especially not after getting in this predicament. Not when I had collapsed after the war, twice. Someone in and out of the hospital and clinics. I was mad woman who tortured for information, to feel their pain, to see humanity when I had none.

"You're already in the history books at the academy."

Ibiki got back on his feet and looked down at me with a smile plastered on his face.

"I don't know where Konoha would have been without you after the war. I don't know how many lives you've saved. I told you this job was hard, but you've worked harder than anyone I've ever had the honor to work with. It's also a job that isn't given enough credit, I wish I could give you more."

He saluted me and was about to take off. I too rashly jumped to my feet.

"I'm coming back!"

Ibiki turned around with a somber face.

"I won't allow it. I saw firsthand what it did to you the first time."

"It's for my baby. It's to keep my baby. I worked out a deal with the elders, it's complicated. I couldn't give them her so I gave them me. I don't care what it'll do to me, I don't care what it'll cost me. The only reason I'm not back is that Tsunade put me on bed rest. I'll be back, and I'll pay their price, five years. I'll do it with a passion and I'll be the best at it!"

"There's no stopping a Yamanaka, is it?"

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The Crystal Flame: I thought your review was good and it always makes me happy when there's a fresh "face" in the review section. So thank you for that and I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying my story.

EmoPrincess: I had so much fun writing the last chapter, I wanted to make it longer but Ino would never beg for anything so it had to be short. Haha. It seems like Ino will never really get what she wants. Poor conflicted little thing, should I insert evil laugh?

SweetLilly: Yes, I've been missing you! Glad to see that I didn't lose you somewhere along the way. Kakashi is many things, including a pervert yes, haha couldn't have changed that. The fact that he thought he had lost his child and would be losing Sasuke didn't make him any better for starters. Yes, a lot of people seem to be interested in Ino because of her child and she's aware of that. I feel that Sakura is flaking, she wants to be a good friend but she doesn't really succeed, she doesn't know what Ino needs and misses whenever she tries of offer it. That's what I feel about their relationship, and it's not like Ino is actually trying so hard herself. That's just my take on their relationship, you may have another. Interpretations are great! To be honest I haven't decided if the elders should calm down or if they'll try something. We'll see. It's Itachi so he could be both or wanting to be clueless. I'd be scared senseless in his situation. Haha, hope you don't mind the long response, I got caught up. PS: I also had a laugh at what I assume was autocorrect in your review, thought you had started reviewing for another story midways in your review before I noticed.


	37. Running out of Time

The weeks rolled by and I was growing. Week thirty rolled by and Sakura became scary, more than usual that is. There's always some fright associated with Sakura. This was no exception.

"Five weeks Ino, in five weeks you're both most likely in the clear."

She had shortly mentioned that the baby was fine before she started scolding me. I swear that girl either had eyes of a hawk or spies. Possible both, possible a spy with even better eyes called, Sasuke. He thought he was so stealthy occasionally following me when I was around town believing I hadn't the faintest idea.

"I'm fine! The baby is fine!"

"She's still underweight and she will come early."

We were arguing again, saying I had to be on bed rest and that did not involve shopping, walking around town and hanging in the flower shop.

"But I'm telling you she won't."

"Tsunade said she would come early."

I was so sick of having Tsunade's words thrown at me. I knew what she had said. I knew what she meant. It was still possible that she was wrong. I knew she was, I could feel it and being on bed rest then was just a drag I could avoid. She had already been very wrong once. Not even once had she apologized, just given me more directions on what to eat, what I had to do, should do, shouldn't do and couldn't do. I knew my baby best, I knew what I needed to do.

"We have no problem helping you if that's what you need. Sure it would be and awful inconvenience and you'll ruin what little free time we have outside of work."

"Shut it!"

She had been saying this for weeks now. Telling her how I would ruin her life if I didn't stay in bed. It was a sham. She didn't have a life to ruin.

"Sure, okay. I'll hire someone to stay with me and I'll try to stay at home as much as possible."

It wasn't possible to stay that much more at home then I already was. She didn't need to know that. She would find out, but I was free for the time being.

"Yes!"

I sighed and rolled my shirt down. Sakura insisted on checkups every second week from this point on. She was developing and responding as she should but she was still small, she was still underweight no matter what I ate and how much.

To say that I had grown was an understatement. I felt like a stranded whale half of the time. It didn't bother me like everybody thought, including myself. It felt natural in some sense, it felt right that I should be this big.

"Have you talked with Itachi about when the baby comes?"

I think he was doing as much of a good job avoiding me as I was doing avoiding him. We had left things off at an odd note last time and he was probably scared senseless.

"Not since I tried to bed him."

"What?! Shut up!"

"I'm not saying anything…"

Sakura was gasping and jumped out of her chair in the examination room we were occupying.

"You tried to sleep with him?!"

"I tried, and I think things got weird."

"Wait, he rejected you?!"

He hadn't technically rejected me and my streak of zero rejections still lived on. He hadn't accepted my advances either and I had been pretty clear about my intentions.

"No, I don't know. Nothing happened, but he's seeing someone else, right? It was just a spur of the moment kind of thing, hormones, right? I'm entitled to be crazy at least once, right?"

I was seeking her approval. I was entitled to do something crazy and messed up while pregnant, right, even if it was just once? I could blame it on hormones but as I had said to myself it takes a lot more than hormones to try and seduce someone like Itachi.

"I wouldn't say he's seeing someone, it's more like he's seeing a parade of them including that girl and she spends the night, often. Sorry, Ino. Might have been hormones, but don't you think it could have been your feelings?"

No. It had nothing to do with my feelings. It was not my feelings, it was hormones and maybe lust. Lust caused by my hormones and I couldn't control them. Much like I couldn't control my feelings, but I was Yamanaka Ino and I could control my feelings if I really wanted. I'd force myself to feel what I wanted for whomever. I didn't have any romantic feelings for any man, especially not any geniuses with dark hair, dark eyes, busy with other ladies and especially not those who seemingly hated me.

"No, I do not whatsoever have feelings for Itachi."

Or anyone else for that matter. I bit my bottom lip. If I kept telling myself that it would become true and the pain might go away. I'd focus on being a mother, a good one and I'd show them. I didn't need a man, I didn't need anyone.

Humans were all unreliable.

I would have my daughter and I knew she would never abandon me, not for the first what sixteen or so first years of her life. She would need me like I need her and we would never forsake one and another. We'd be together through thick and thin and that was the only thing keeping me alive. The fact that I would become a mother.

And not in long either. In about two months time she should be here. Less than two months even. Less than. I had so much to do, so many things that had to be sorted out. I was starting to run out of time.

I needed diapers, I needed towels, I needed more clothes for her and the house was a living death trap for a baby. Imminent death was around every corner.

"I still think you should see him soon, talk things out."

I didn't answer her because I knew she was right. I could argue logic; I could argue anything and everything. Today I didn't have the willpower.

"So, have you been thinking about how and where you're going to give birth?"

Sakura gave me pamphlet. I tossed it on my belly, gave a large sigh and hid my face in my arms. There weren't only different places to give birth but also ways? There wasn't just in the hospital or at home.

"I'm running out of time!"

"You'd have more time if you'd stay in bed."

Sakura was right, in more than one way. I'd have more time because there wouldn't be jack to do and more time because the baby might stay on board longer.

"Sakura, give me every pamphlet, everything I might need to know, I'm hopeless. I don't know anything, I hardly know what a baby is!"

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No responses because no one reviewed, sad face. Okay, I'm fine now…

BTW, I've finished this story (for the second time) chapters will run up to 50 and the story will then be over. For real this time, it will be over. How can I be certain about that? I'm writing the more lighthearted sequel that follows the child rather than Ino. I do find it very cute myself up until the angst will catch up… but that's not for a loooong time. Hope you've enjoyed the chapter and story so far.


	38. Family Extension

I had robbed Sakura for whatever written material I could find and taken off for the flower shop. I was going to be a mother and that very soon, but I had no idea what being a mother would mean. What if the baby just cried? What if I did something wrong? What if I killed her or even worse, what if she hated me?

I had to read up. I had rushed through the doors ready to beg Umeko to help me out at home. Ready to pay whatever price she named. She just looked at me with confusion in her eyes. My face must have been red and sweaty from rushing and I was panting heavily.

"Ino? Are you okay? Is there something wrong?"

I shook my head trying to get my breath back so that I would be able to beg her. If she refused I would have to do something as drastic as inviting a stranger into my home, move in with Sasuke and Sakura or even worse I would end up with Itachi. That could not happen, I would just get in the way for him endless parade of women.

"Umeko, are you busy?"

"It's been a normal morning?"

Shoot, I would have to be more specific. She had no idea what I was asking and I was starting to fear that I was frightening her.

"Good, but I mean: Are you busy as in do you have any missions or something planned outside of work the next couple of months?"

She shook her head slowly. Normally we wouldn't know if we had missions that far in advance. There were some exceptions but normally we'd have a days notice tops.

"Would you like another job outside the flower shop?"

Her lips contracted and started moving from side to side as she was thinking about it.

"It won't be stressful or even that much work."

Umeko was still pondering and I was starting to fear that she would turn me down.

"I need some help around the house, I'll be on bed rest meaning I can't do everything myself anymore."

I hadn't wanted to put it this way because I was afraid she would start asking questions. Why Itachi wasn't helping out, why didn't I just move in with him? I wasn't in the mood to tell her that I currently despised the father of my child and hadn't it been for the love I have toward my own father I would do everything possible to keep him away.

"You'd let me?!"

Umeko shrieked and pulled me into a hug. I just stood there concentrating on holding my balance as my weight shifted. She let go of me when she realized that I wouldn't return the hug.

"Sorry."

She was calmer now and offered me a smile.

"Don't worry, and of course I'll help you! We'll have so much fun!"

I regretted ever asking her. I regretted inviting such a positive life force into my house, my home. It wasn't the time, not even with the life growing inside of me. My home wasn't a place of happiness. Within it death still dwelled.

I would invite someone I didn't know that well into my home. My home where I had once been a part of a happy family with both three and two members. Where I had taken my first steps, the first home my parents shared as a married couple.

It was also the same home where I had argued and fought with my father countless times, where three became two. It was the place where I kept all that was left of my father, where clan secrets were held.

I had invited her into the very core of Ino Yamanaka, into my very core.

She was thinking it would be fun. I grew suspicious that she would be able to handle the task. She would have to, or I would do it all on my own.

We sorted out the details and I went in the bookstore and must have bought every book containing the word baby. I had a lot to read up on. Babies didn't come with user manuals. I didn't have time to learn when the baby would come.

I felt almost like a child flipping through the books realizing there was so much I didn't know. There was so much I hadn't thought about at all. Would I use disposable diapers or would I use cloth? Would I breastfeed or use formula? What were the pros and cons? Should I even talk to Itachi about things like these? Was this was he wanted to talk about when I wanted to sleep with him?

Was my life crumbling to pieces?

Yes

Having Umeko around proved to be a great help. She stayed with me in daytime and left in the evenings, but as my due date was getting closer we opted to clean out the spare bedroom so she would have somewhere to sleep.

I grew closer to her each day that went by. I hadn't expected it. I hadn't expected that we would braid each other's hair and laugh at each other's failed attempts when it came to boys and pretty much everything else.

She came in with some soup one evening. I didn't have much of an appetite anymore. Still I would force myself to follow the nutrition plan Sakura had made out for me. I had a check up the next morning. I was excited about it. My due date was getting closer by the second. I hardly had another month to go.

They said she would come early. What a load of humbug. Not even the hot weather had made the baby want to come out. She already loved her mother and wanted to stay as long as possible. She would no longer be considered premature.

My body had changed. It had problems realizing just how big I had gotten. Sakura had been right when she claimed that I would really start growing when my third trimester started. She had helped me get this far and I would be forever grateful for her help no matter how annoying her nagging was.

I hadn't seen much to Itachi since that god awful attempt. He hadn't sought out me and I hadn't gone looking for him. Now that I actually didn't leave the house anymore there wasn't any chance of me bumping into him either. He had to come to me and it didn't seem like he wanted that so I would leave him to whatever and whomever he was doing.

Sakura had briefly mentioned that he was doing better, he had weekly appointments and he was on medication. She only said it so that I wouldn't have to worry about him around the baby when it was born.

That one was less worry I had. Don't worry, I had so many more and it was keeping me up at night. That with the constant need to pee. I once contemplated asking Sakura if she could help me hook up my bladder to a bag so that I wouldn't have to seemingly spend half my day in the bathroom.

"Oh! She's kicking! I can see it!"

If Umeko was able to see it, I'll let you know I could feel it. She was constantly torturing me with her feet and I could feel it. She was strong, really strong.

"She's such an abuser."

Umeko giggled and sat down in her guest bed we were sharing, with her own bowl of soup. I liked having her this close. I had always known I had picked well when I hired her, but I had no idea we would get this close.

It seemed naturally having her around. Like we fitted together. It almost felt like I had grown up with her, like she had always been part of me. She even looked somewhat similar to me. It was small things. Like the angle of her eyes and nose, we were about the same height but she was bigger than me. No wonder, I guess I would have been about her size hadn't I been eating lean since my early teens.

"Choji is coming over for tea after your session tomorrow."

I nodded. He was glowing now a day. He had his life figured out. I was on bare ground, but I wasn't worried. Things would work out for the best, I had a feeling. I was bouncing back to a better version of myself. Nothing could knock me down, nothing could make me give up. Ibiki was right, I would always survive.

I almost looked forward to going back. Things would be better this time. The workload wouldn't be extreme and I wouldn't have work outside my job. I would have a child and that was a ton of work, but I remember back when my father worked and took care of me. He never complained once, I would follow in his footsteps.

People say that there comes a time in a daughters life when she realizes she's turning into her mother. I never had one and was proud I was striving to become more like my father.

My strong, fair and poised father. I wished to be as serene as him. So calm, collected and strong no matter what the universe threw at him.

I had a feeling he would have freaked out had he lived to experience his unwed daughter get knocked up by Uchiha Itachi.

I laughed and Umeko looked over at me.

"What you thinking about?"

"My father."

She smiled hearing that the memory of my father didn't just bring me sorrow anymore. I was able to laugh thinking about what she assumed was happy and funny memories.

"I'm hoping I'll get there with my mother."

Umeko looked down pulling at my comforter. It wasn't cold at all, the act was purely to seek comfort from the outside world.

"I never had a mother, what's it like?"

It was true to me that I never had a mother. I didn't remember much of her. If I was going to be a mother I would need to know what having a mother was like. I didn't have much of an idea what motherhood was like. I had tried talking to Kurenai about it, but she was busy being a single mother and I felt like her experience didn't apply to mine. No one has experienced what I'm going through. I would let Itachi take part in the life of his daughter. For her sake. So I wouldn't be alone with her, I would have some help.

"It was the best, she taught me everything it feels like. She was always there for me. It's all about the small things, like how soft the laundry was when she did it opposed to my father, the notes in my lunch, how she would brush my hair when she knew I wanted to look extra good at the academy, she just knew what to say."

My father wasn't always the expert on what to say. This became clear when I became a teen and he often seemed out of his wits and awkward. I couldn't blame him thinking about what kind of outfit sometimes greeted him in the morning. He quickly learned that he couldn't make me change clothes, or change my mind about anything.

"I miss her cooking, and her sweet words."

Umeko sighed and clutched her locket. She always had it on. Always. I had never seen her without it.

"Sounds different than a father."

Umeko giggled.

"Yes, it is. Nothing compares to a mother's love."

I placed my hand on my stomach and the worst kicking stopped. I was terrified of when that time came, but speaking from a biological standpoint I couldn't wait to have her out.

"I know she loved you too."

I didn't say anything assuming she spoke of my mother. My mother had never loved me. My mother hadn't been worthy of the title and I should have denounced her to birth giver because that's all she was to me.

"I'm going to be a much better mother than she ever was."

"How do you feel about having a growing family?"

I smiled. I was excited. It had never been as real to me as it was now. There was nothing natural that could stop me from becoming a mother. There was no turning back.

"I'm terrified with joy."

Umeko giggled and looked down at me patting my stomach.

"I guess in some sense you're gaining the Uchihas as family too."

It was part of the bargain I had told myself and it wouldn't be too steep a price for what I was gaining. It would actually have been worse if my first had knocked me up. He had a better family but his clan was so much worse making it a much worse deal.

"It can't be that bad, you'll have to love family."

"Do you think you'll have more children?"

I had always wanted three children. Three was the magic number, me and my spouse would be leaving more lives behind in the world when we were gone. Three was a great number. Having just one child was the stupidest thing. Statistics said that shinobi parents had shinobi children and it sadly wasn't unlikely that they would die.

That plan was down the drain.

"I don't know. I had a great time as a single child, but it was lonely sometimes."

It was lonely at night when dad was either at work or sleeping. In the daytime I always had my team but when the sun set I was always alone.

"Do you wish you had siblings?"

Umeko started fidgeting with something and I felt her shift in the bed. I didn't respond to her. I wasn't sure. If I had sibling I wouldn't be alone. I wanted more than one child. I would have more than just one. I wanted a big family.

Umeko dropped her locket on my chest. I picked it up as she looked at me with eager eyes. She fervent nodded for me to open it.

The first picture didn't cause a reaction from me. Judging by his look it was her father. They looked very much alike. The other picture caused my heart to stop on the other hand. Long warm blond hair, eyes like mine.

"I… Eh… We're sisters, half-sisters!"

My long forgotten soup was sent flying to the wall. Soup splashed all over the bedroom.

"INO!"

Wide eyes matched my ones. I could feel my eyes shaking. I handed her locket back. I couldn't stand being in contact with it. I couldn't stand the face it contained.

I jumped out of the bed and walked over to the door.

"I'll leave, but I want you gone before I come back tomorrow morning."

COCOCOCOCOCO

Mari: I'll finish, no worries!


	39. Bound by Family

I hadn't known where to go after leaving home. I had options. That wasn't the problem, but if I used any of them I would have to explain myself. I would have to give a reason for my red face and puffy eyes and tell them why I couldn't spend the night at my home.

I had been running through my options while lying on my back in one of the many flower fields surrounding the Yamanaka compound. None of them seemed right. I wondered if Shikamaru's old house was empty now that he had moved. They would probably discover me in the morning, but not if I got up early, it was the Nara compound.

I was already on my feet when I decided to bin the idea. It held too many bad memories now. I could check into the hotel but I had left my wallet at home.

I hadn't realized where I was moving before I was in his hallway. I had even entered without knocking or even realizing what I was doing. He was there before I had kicked off my shoes. He was fully dressed still and to my knowledge alone.

"I don't want to talk about it."

I brushed past him and sat down in his couch wiping the last tears that had fallen.

Her betrayal ran deep. She had known for so long. Probably why she had taken the job. She had spied on me for months, she had known for moths and not told a thing. Didn't I have the right to know that we shared the same DNA, shared the same mother?

She even had the guts to say that my mother had loved me.

Only my father had ever loved me and Asuma and I feared Shikamaru. They were all gone now, Choji had at one point loved me platonically as well, but he had traded up leaving me behind.

I was bawling again as Itachi placed a cup of tea in front of me. I grabbed it and clutched it as my life depended on it.

"I'm sorry."

"The baby, it's okay?"

He didn't care about me anymore and I couldn't blame him. I had made it sure how I wanted him to think I felt about him. I was just a vessel to carry the child that would save his brother. I nodded. The baby was fine, sleeping I would guess since she wasn't kicking me anymore.

I had even let her feel my stomach once when she was kicking. I had let her touch me, let her have a connection to my child.

I grabbed Itachi and pulled him down on the couch as I could wrap myself around him and cry on his shoulder. He slowly laid his hands around me and rested his head on mine.

"Should I be worried?"

"Shhh, no questions."

He respected that like I knew he would. He respected my need for silence because he too enjoyed the silence in his own home. He would wait for me to be ready to talk to him.

"You've gotten big."

I noticed to my surprise that he wasn't addressing me but my stomach. He had a smile plastered on his face. The scene made me choke my last tears and calm down. I would never become like my mother. I would give everything for my baby. I wanted her to be happy.

"I think we should marry."

"Nonsense."

He turned me down that quick and easy. I had expected him to be glad. It would make the child legitimate and he could even put the heiress document we made on trial.

He had been too quick to turn me down and I understood him perfectly well. I wouldn't have married myself either. I was an awful person inside and outside. The reaction to having a sister, half none the less, was an accurate description of me as a person.

I started crying once more and he looked guilty pulling me close again thinking he was the one who had caused my second outburst.

"I want more children."

He clutched me. Trying to ignore what I was saying. I wanted a happy family. I wanted it all. I wanted that spouse and three children and it wasn't important to me with whom anymore. I didn't get to pick my spouse because of a mistake.

"You've been a horrible person, but I think I'm able to make it work for the child."

He knew I for once wasn't referring to his family, I never had. He patted my head trying to calm me down. We didn't have much time. We needed to act fast to sort everything out before the baby came. We didn't actually need to be married before she came. We could wait two or three years and she could be in the wedding. After our weeding we would try to get pregnant then have our second child, three years later give and take some we'd have our thrid. We'd discuss a fourth child but I don't know what we'll agree yet.

We could be happy. I would never leave my children. They'd have a loving father and mother. We'd be together for as long as we lived because we were both patient persons. We could make it work and be happy. We would never love each other, not like husband and wife should. We could still be happy together.

"If you're willing to look away from my weakness and flaws, we could be happy."

"We can't."

"I can be a good wife!"

"I'm sure you can."

That wasn't the problem. He knew I would make a half decent wife. I could only assume I wouldn't make the half decent wife he wanted. I would never been the one he wanted.

I changed position lying down on his lap instead. The rejection burned. The proposal had been rash without any touch of romance or consideration. I understood that he said no, I can see why he rejected me. It still burned. I assumed he would think of it as a wise step and he hadn't asked me because he was a gentleman and didn't want to pressure me.

"Will you tell me what got you so worked up?"

I closed my eyes trying to figure out where to start and what I should leave out.

Something was touching my hair and my whole body jerked. My head was resting on something hard but warm. I opened my eyes, the room was dimly light and utter silent. I must have fallen asleep on his lap.

I stretched letting go of a yawn. I told him I was sorry again and he stopped running his fingers through my hair. I had to grab his hand and put it on my head for him to start again. He did so hesitantly with slow movements.

"I have a sister, a half one that is."

He didn't move, didn't falter playing with my hair. The motion was soothing. It was a constant, rhythmic motion. He was good at this, must have practiced or he played with his own hair a lot. I know I played with my hair when it was long.

He didn't respond to my words. Didn't even ask who it was, if we shared a common mother or father? He didn't ask a single question and that was why I must have come. Itachi didn't ask questions because he wasn't interested in gossip and neither was I anymore. We all have secrets, you don't get better, smarter or gain anything from listening to gossip.

"It's the girl in the flower shop."

"The one that was there the day I asked you if you were pregnant?"

He was spot on guessing correct on his first guess. No surprise there he was very observant nobody could take that away from him.

"I'm jealous of her."

I didn't feel ashamed admitting this to Itachi. It was why I had reacted so strongly. Because she had a mother and father and I only had a father. That was the part I was ashamed of. Being jealous of her having mother I was indirectly saying my father wasn't enough.

"It's only natural, she had relations to a mother you never knew."

I turned my head burying in his lap before screaming. He didn't even react then. I wondered if he would have moved if I bit him. I wondered what his reaction would be if I tried to get a good chunk of his thigh in my mouth and bit down with all the power and strength in my jaws.

"I was always jealous of the love Sasuke received."

I sat up beside Itachi. Had he just admitted being jealous of his little brother?! Sasuke had been envied by his older brother?

"I loved mother and father, but I wanted them to love me like they loved Sasuke. Unconditionally, more so."

He placed a hand on my stomach. He moved it slowly so that I would be able to push it away hadn't I wanted it placed on my stomach.

"That's why I'm willing to do anything for this child. I'll love her no matter what. Nothing matters because to me she'll always be perfect. No strings attached, no _if_ you're able to, _if_ you know this, _if_ you do well, _if you're the very best_."

"My father always loved me no matter what."

But I didn't even think he could love me in this condition, in this state, in this predicament. He would, eventually like always. He always forgave me no matter what my actions had been. We were a duo, a team and we needed each other.

"I would like to be like that for our child."

I scooted closer to him, inches away from his face. I could feel his breath on my face, could see his mouth twitch awaiting my next move.

"Thank you."

I moved away from him again. He looked at me, surprised. I was building up to something before I tore it down not following through. He was let down, confused about my advances.

"Sorry about the proposal."

It felt ridiculous. I had even talked to him about wanting more children while I was pregnant with his illegitimate half accidental child. He had calmly listened to it all, he didn't care once he knew the baby and possibly I weren't in danger or hurt physically.

"Also sorry about ruining your night."

"It's only fair. I must have ruined many nights for you."

He had. For more than one reason, the last one being almost eight months pregnant, it wasn't easy. Nothing about the pregnancy had been easy.

"If you had the chance to do it over again, would you still have picked me?"

He had been asking himself that question, not exactly, more in the lines if he had done the right choice. He had made one mistake he knew, he had used me. I had never been hurt so badly before. I had never experienced such betrayal.

"Only if you had agreed to it."

"I wouldn't have."

There was no reason to sugar coat things with Itachi. He was never offended by the truth. Either he knew or he learned. He didn't let his own ideas and morals affect others and their mindset.

I lay down on his lap again.

"It's not that I would trade this child for anything now that it's… Real."

Now that the baby had been made there's nothing more I wanted than to have it. Hadn't it been made I would have waited with children. I would have waited for the perfect father.

"Then I'd have to go to my second on the list."

I was curious to who that would have been. I didn't ask him. He wouldn't tell if I showed interest.

"I had Sakura as an absolute last resort. She would have done it for Sasuke, we could even have passed on his child as mine."

It made sense. It was probably the only reason Sasuke could willingly have been allowed to knock up Sakura. To save his life she would have almost gone as far as Itachi.

"It wasn't your genes, or really you that made me make my choice alone."

Lying on my back I looked up on him. Sure we were an interesting match thinking about appearances and abilities. The child had a fair shot at being good at just about everything.

"Remembering back to all clan events, to all the times I walked past the flower shop or for some reason found myself in the Yamanaka compound I found my breath taken away. Especially when I saw you with your father. You were all so relaxed, loving and easy going. It didn't matter that you weren't the best, it didn't matter what you did. The only thing that mattered was that you were loved and happy. I wanted that."

I had a carefree upbringing. My father was always supportive in everything I did. I wasn't shielded but I was protected. I was constantly praised for what I felt was me, when I did something right or excelled in something I would be praised in healthy amounts. Sure daddy helped me build an ego, but nothing too grand. Even just trying brought approval from my dad and the Yamanaka elders. I just had to try for them all to be pleased.

"I want that for our child, that's why it'll be a Yamanaka."

"I could teach you."

Itachi looked down at me. It would be difficult and it would take time. I was molded in this way of life, it was the only thing I knew until I started the academy. It wasn't until I met Sasuke really that I learned that not everyone had the same perspective on life as the Yamanakas. It was his main attraction, beside his insanely drool inducing good looks.

"I could teach you not to give a fuck."

I laughed and he stayed motionless. This was just what I was talking about. He was brought up too well.

"See, you give too much of a shit to laugh."

He tried smiling but it looked more like he had jammed his balls inducing both pain and pleasure, mostly pain.

"I'll teach you the way of the Yamanakas. Like right now, I'm tired so I'll award myself with sleeping in your bed. I'll need pillows, lot of them."

This time his smile looked less ball crunching.

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TrapQueen: Glad to see you with us again! Hope things aren't going along too fast. Glad to read that you'll be with me until the end and further. Shameless and blatant flattery will bring faster updates. I'm trying to make life easier for Ino. I guess this chapter told you when Itachi would be back in the picture. Thankfully there will be a whole story about Itachi as a father. Thank you so much for the flattery and compliments!

Gerren: Happy to see a new reviewer! I hope it's not too intense. I have so twist, turns and surprises the next chapters.

Sesshomaru: I try my best to keep my readers on their toes. Hope you're enjoying the story!


	40. 180

Five out of six pillows had been tossed on the floor during the night. They weren't needed when I had a body sized pillow right next to me. Well, it was a real body, not a pillow. I had attached myself to Itachi during the night. He was perfect to rest my enlarged belly on. He was so good that I had only woken once. The first thing I did after waking up was to run to the bathroom.

She gave me a soft kicking round as a thank you for emptying myself. She was awake, and so was her mother, hardly. I subbed off to bed not being shy about lying down next to Itachi.

"She kicks a lot."

He didn't need to tell me. If I hadn't known better I could almost believe Lee was the father. He certainly wasn't, I wouldn't touch him, not Gai either. Ew. Why was I even thinking about them at night while lying next to Itachi?

"Thankfully she has a lot to kick through so she hasn't gotten lose yet."

I looked over at his bedside alarm clock. Five in the morning, he was getting up late today. I had my appointment in another five hours.

"I hope you don't mind."

I snuggled closer to Itachi. Didn't know why I suddenly had changed towards him. Must have been hormones, I had been raging. I had been so mad at him, I must be craving physical contact and he hadn't rejected me yet. Just some of my proposals.

I was still tired and afraid I would fall asleep. I was keeping Itachi captive. He couldn't get out of bed without removing me. He didn't seem like he would anytime soon. He was such a gentleman and didn't want to upset me.

Things became awkward when I remembered his shirt hadn't fit me last night. I had decided, in the good sleepy mood I was, to only sleep in my underwear. I was grinding more or less on Itachi in my underwear. I almost wondered if he had morning wood. If not, would I be able to give him one? No, he didn't like me that way, and I looked like a stranded sea creature.

He hadn't answered if he minded; I assumed he would have spoken his mind if it was a problem. If he was quiet I would think it was no bother snuggling close to him.

I must have fallen asleep again and woke up alone. I cursed looking at that damned watch. I had about an hour to get ready and get to the hospital. I wouldn't have time to swing by home to have a shower and change clothes. I guess my purple maxi dress would have to do for another day. It was maxi in more than one way and was one of few pieces that fit me now that I had gotten this ridiculously big.

Itachi wasn't alone when I came back out. Bad aim girl with friend was seated together with Itachi by the kitchen table. Itachi was on his feet when I came closer.

"I'll set the table for you, Ino."

I shook my head. I had lost my appetite. I was being feed murderous looks and I filled up quickly. I had exited Itachi's bedroom in the morning ad that didn't look good to them. I regretted sleeping in his bed, hoped the sheets hadn't been used. I would drop breakfast and rather have a shower. I desperately needed one now.

"I have to go, I have an appointment."

I pointed at my belly and he nodded. He understood, Sakura was keeping him updated disregarding patient confidentiality. She would have minded had she knew I would have a problem with him knowing. She just made my life easier.

"I would have come… hadn't I been entertaining."

I expected him to trail off after claiming he would come. Truth was that he hadn't been with me to a single check-up. I was partially to blame for that, I hadn't invited him but he still should have asked. It wouldn't have cost him anything.

"Well, thank you for last night."

I walked over to him and planted a sweet kiss on his cheek. It was only to annoy bad aim girl. How I wanted to take her outside and beat her to a pulp. As a pregnant lady who was supposed to be on bed rest I couldn't engage in such activities.

The stroll to the hospital had been good. I had found my home empty except a letter on the kitchen counter. I wouldn't read it. There hadn't been enough time. I needed to digest what had happened.

COCO

Sakura smacked her lips as she placed cold gel on my stomach. She had wanted an ultrasound for this session. She needed to see the baby on the screen. It had been months since the last time. She didn't seem too pleased but I wasn't worried.

A few minutes later I had my response started by a loud sigh.

"So, you're having a breech baby, congratulations."

That was one of the worst news I had ever gotten. That would make things so much harder, horrible and painful.

"I assume it's an Uchiha thing. They all act like they entered the world butt first."

Sakura laughed signaling she very much agreed.

"Still, it'll be fine. No worries, this is what we have painkillers for. Knowing you, you're going for painkillers."

I nodded. Natural birth was a load of bull. Why experience pain when there was an easy way out? Wouldn't change my relationship to the baby in anyway, it wouldn't even in the slightest. She had already caused me enough harm with her restless kicking. On my way here she had the hiccups too. Double trouble.

"Just give me as much as possible."

"I guess you've read up on labor and general baby care?"

I nodded. I had read everything I had found in the hospital and even bought a few, twenty three, books.

"No worries. I'll be there when you deliver and Itachi been reading up on baby care I can promise you that much!"

Sure he had been reading. Though he had already had some practice with Sasuke. He was still a child age wise when he became an older brother but Itachi had never been a child. He probably acted as a third parent for the poor innocent cute little baby Sasuke. I couldn't help but to hope that my baby would be just as cute or even cuter.

"Your amniotic fluids haven't dropped."

I expected her to say that they had. They should start dropping soon. I just had five more weeks until my due date. That was hardly over a month. Things should start happening. I was promised a premature baby.

"We'll have weekly checkups from now on and don't worry this is a good thing. The longer the pregnancy the better."

It was easy for her to say. She wasn't carrying a child, a large child. I felt like I was ready to burst. I was ready but the baby wasn't ready to hatch.

"I think Itachi is looking forward to becoming a father."

Sakura smiled as she printed pictures for me to take home. It had been a while since I had anything positive to say about Itachi. It wasn't in the slightest ready to forgive him, he hadn't even properly said he was sorry.

"I proposed to him."

I once again dropped an Itachi bomb on Sakura.

"Shut up!"

This time I expected her to say that.

"He turned me down."

"Someone turned down Yamanaka Ino?"

There had to be a first for everything, right? I still hadn't gotten over how stupid the idea had been. There was no legal reason for us to get married, we had worked out the paperwork. It would be better to have two parents they weren't together but friends (let's put in a question mark with that statement), than to have two parents in a dead marriage.

It was the worst that could happen to the child. Knowing that her parents got married just because of her and not because of love. There would also come a time where she might learn that she was created just to save her uncle.

There was no telling how she might react to that.

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Seems like my readers likes balls? Haha, I love you guys!

Sesshomaru: I laughed writing that as well because I had no trouble imagining it!

TrapQueen: Haha, I know. I had great fun coming up with that. Dun-dun-duuun, they're not getting along anymore. I couldn't have the peace and quiet last too long, could I?

A fan: Anything for a fan!

Guest: I can't wait to post that chapter either!

ShikaIno: Aw, I'm glad! I have a feeling you're loving the story some more soon without reveling too much I hope.


	41. He's the Father

"You should come out right about now."

I looked down at my enlarged stomach inhabited by another human being with no intentions to leave anytime soon.

Another session with Sakura ended with another disappointment. I was nowhere near ready for birth and the message was now overtime. I had gone from doomed to deliver early, perhaps even too early to being overdue.

Sakura had even started talking about surgery. The baby was still small, but it was growing rapidly. That was of course a good thing, but it was breeched. That was not a good thing for me. Sakura made sure that the baby wouldn't take any harm by it. So that left me with all the pain and hard work to push that ball out of my most sacred place.

"I want to be there."

I looked at Itachi like he was crazy. He really was. I had bumped into him trying to decide what to order from some street vendor. Gossiping with Sakura left me hungry and making my own meals was still a hassle. Thank goodness I had the brains not to tell Sakura I was living alone again.

"And I think you should move in with me."

He was positively mad.

"No and no."

I ordered and bit my lip watching the chef starting to prepare my meal. I was definitively hungry and I wouldn't let even Itachi ruin this meal for me.

"To go?"

"To go."

"Eat here."

Itachi looked over at me and so did the poor chef.

"Eat here."

I sighed defeated. We should probably talk this out even if there were other things I'd rather do like eat barbed wire. Too bad nothing good would come out of that meal unlike this talk. We shouldn't have delayed it this long.

Itachi had ordered some dango dropping the green tea and replaced it with green tea ice cream. He'd be damned if he passed on his bad and unhealthy eating habits to our child. I would not have a sugar monster.

"I never expected to make it past twenty and developed some bad habits."

He explained looking at my face before he offered me one of his dango sticks.

"I'm pregnant."

He looked down at my stomach not sure why that was worth mentioning. He should have known better, I did my best to stay away from unhealthy food even when my cravings were at their worst. What I ate weren't only the building blocks for my body anymore, what I ate became my child and I didn't want a dango stick.

"It's your loss."

He took a rather large scoop of ice cream and in a moment of weakness I barged for it attaching myself to his spoon. The cold treat tasted so good and I couldn't help not to moan. The poor chef placed my lunch in front of me with a disturbed look.

"Glad to have made you moan once…"

Itachi was already digging the spoon through his ice cream again. My vegetable wok didn't seem quite as tempting anymore. I blamed the weather. It was hot and we both needed to cool down. It was for the best. The pros outweighed the cons.

"You didn't do anything, you didn't make the ice cream."

He gave me a look. One that almost made me believe he took it was a challenge and that made me want some more ice cream to cool down.

"I'm going to go to the hospital alone and for the living alone thing… I'll figure something out. There's got to be someone in the Yamanaka compound that won't mind keeping an eye on me."

I was surrounded by relatives. It wasn't too much of a favor to ask, to stop by. I could still walk and I could go get help if the little brat decided to do her debut.

"I want to be there, I want her to be one of the first persons she sees."

It was, I'm not sure. Egocentric? That didn't catch it either because it made sense that he would want to be there when his child was born.

"I said no, I'm not saying you can't be at the hospital. I'm just saying there's no chance you'll ever see me giving birth."

I wanted as few people as possible to see me giving birth, especially people I knew and had relations to. What I caught from reading those baby books, birth was awful and messy. There was even a great chance I would shit myself, in the literal sense. How horrible wouldn't it be to have Uchiha Itachi witness something like that? I'd be red, sweating, cursing and shitting myself and he was one of the last persons I wanted to witness that. Worst case scenario I read that some women even orgasm on top of that mess.

It was bad enough I didn't have the heart to tell Sakura that she couldn't deliver the child. She had taken it for granted and had been talking about it for months already. How she looked forward to being there and helping me bring life into the world. All I was thinking as she was messing was that not only would she see everything, she would have to stick her fingers up there too.

"I guess that's understandable but… "

"NO!"

I scuffed some more food in my mouth and tried to ignore him. There was no way I was changing my mind. I was already dreading this day more than every exam I had ever taken combined including my training and first day with Ibiki. That's a lot of dread combined and take that into one thing. I was losing my mind and it would happen soon.

I moved quickly and stole yet another spoon of Itachi's ice cream. He had noticed my mood and decided to lay the matter to rest. There was no way he was getting anywhere with me on this case.

"Waiting room will do…"

He motioned for the chef to bring over two more plates of ice cream and he cleaned his last stick of dango in on go. It was like watching Choji eat in the mornings. To him breakfast really was breaking a fast, it was just that it seemed like the fast had lasted a month and he needed to stock up on energy for another month long fast.

"You're a pig."

I half expected him to lick clean his plate when the chef brought out yet another plate of ice cream and I almost gagged. I was even closer when he placed another plate in front of me with a smile. I had to have a large sip of my water.

"What? Do you want me to feed you, again?"

I furrowed my brows and almost didn't detect the flying spoon that came from my right side. It was too late to push it away so I tried to move my head. The end result was a smeared face and a laughing Itachi. It was a child like giggle, something you'd expect to hear from a child who had just preformed such a stunt.

I was not pleased. I was afraid I had gotten something on one out of two dresses that fit me. I should have bought some more but I was told the baby would be here months ago why invest in maternity clothes then when they all looked like fabric shits?

"Itachi! It was my only clean dress!"

This only made the cursed man and baby father to be, laugh even harder. He seemed somewhat sorry, but it didn't slow him down the slightest.

"I'm sorry, that was uncalled for. I'll help you clean it up."

I was un-expecting when he leaned forward. Didn't question his intentions before I felt something wet on my cheek. Had he just liked me? I wouldn't have believed it hadn't it been for the small stain barely visible on his nose.

"ITACHI!"

I screamed and whined but admittedly I melted when I saw his face, that smile was to die for.

"I'll help you for real this time!"

I sighed closing my eyes. This man was acting like an ill behaved child. I had never seen anything like it and not from him. Never had I anticipated something like this from him.

Something wet once again hit my cheek. This time it was cold, freezing cold. He had already fallen from his chair when I opened my eyes. This was looking more like a scene that could have happened in Naruto's youth than my present day life with Itachi.

I decided to get back at him while he was spasming on the ground. I grabbed my spoon and finished his ice cream before I with chills moved over to my own. My mouth was freezing cold as I pushed the last spoon in my mouth. I'm sure if I had opened my mouth smoke would have emitted out of it like it was a cold winter morning.

"I'm sorry, I'll help you for real this time."

When he grabbed a napkin I believed him. I had closed my eyes as he was going to clean my face. I was awaiting the dry and hard napkin when I again felt something cold. By now I was so tired of his antics I would roll with it and let him get it out of his system. I could always take a cold shower when I came back home.

I could feel him giggle as he worked his tongue over my face. This was more surrealistic than his giggling. I still hadn't gotten over that giggle. I would soon.

Since licking my face clean hadn't caused a reaction from me he kissed me. It wasn't a sweet and tender kiss, it was a rough one. It grew rougher, more demanding and harsh the longer I let him kiss me. Soon both his hands were at the side of my face. He pulled me closer, pulled me off the chair. I buried my hands in his soft hair. Opened my mouth and let him in. His cold tongue was cold and sweet in my mouth, as sweet as the ice cream we had been eating but not as cold as me.

He let go off me all of a sudden, I was almost scared he had pushed me. He hadn't, but he had taken a step back giving the illusion. His eyes were large as he looked at me with half my face still covered in ice cream. The chef stood just as surprised. He would have thrown us out for that stunt, making out so aggressively and intense in his eatery. He must have known who Itachi was.

"It was only fair, you had eaten all the ice cream."

He said it in shock. It was obvious that he couldn't understand, couldn't believe what he had did, what had happened.

He stormed off after that to no one's surprise. I opened my purse and put down enough cash to pay for the both of us and then some still looking at where Itachi went out of my sight.

"But miss Yamanaka, you've got a baby on the way!"

"He's the father."

So the chef knew who I was.

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TrapQueen: Glad you enjoyed my response! As always glad you're enjoying my story. I can't believe I'm done either. I want to post all the chapters at once but then I would get the same amount of reviews and I've become an awful review craver/whore/addict/monster!

As for the bad aim girl, I can answer you hopefully without spoiling. She was created just for gags and to make Ino mad. Then things progressed, she won't personally be in the story that much, but especially in the sequel she'll have some important roles.

Sesshomaru: It might be because they're born butt first? Perhaps it's something in their drinking water?

Guest: You learn something new every day? Glad I taught you something and I'll definitively continue.

ShikaIno: You're too kind! I'm so glad I think and hope I have a special treat for you in the next chapter.


	42. Speechless

I had hurried home. I needed some downtime to think about getting my face licked. The stares I got on the street told me I still had ice cream in my face. It didn't stop me, I was going as fast as I possibly could.

He had licked my face, I had let him. He had kissed me and I had kissed him back.

This was not what was supposed to happen right before I became a mother. This was not how we were supposed to be acting. We were supposed to be friends at best, strained friends who would never be comfortable all alone. The case was that I was too comfortable in his presence. I would avoid him, but I had his baby on the way leaving that option out. I still had some time to avoid him. I would exploit that.

I stopped my hurry when I saw a pile outside my door. It looked like someone had dropped a human shaped pile of laundry on my doorstep because man, was that awful dirty jacket was hideous.

I knew very well that it wasn't a human shaped pile of laundry. I knew that scent, I knew that energy, I knew that hair and oval face that emitted from the jacket.

He looked strained and tired, his left eye was blue and purple, his lips dried and cracked, his general face was dirty.

"I know I don't deserve it, I know I've done everything to turn you away, but you said you'd be there for me if I ever messed up. You said that you'd be there if I ever fucked up bad and I really did this time, Ino."

Shikamaru removed his jacket and reviled what he had been holding. It was moving, it was kicking. It was a baby. Shikamaru had a baby.

A shot of pain flew through me emitting from my stomach and I fell down on my knees screaming. It was just as much everything else than the pain that had me screaming.

Itachi had licked my face, Shikamaru looked like shit and had a baby.

He was on his feet by my side in seconds offering his hand. I ignored it and grabbed the railing for support and got up on my own.

I climbed the stairs and unlocked the door.

"Are you okay?!"

I left the door open so that he would follow. He grabbed his backpack and jacket then he entered.

"Ino?"

He knew it was bad when he had rendered me speechless. He had so far experienced it twice in all our lifetime.

"Ino?"

He was more defeated and worried this time. I knew I had to be his last resort. His father and clan had evicted him, Asuma was gone and Choji, none of us wanted to bother Choji because he was always so innocent and happy.

"Please, just say _something_ to me!"

He could have turned to Kurenai. They were close, closer than I had ever been to her. I never knew how much time they spent together. Some foolish idea had entered my mind shortly after Asuma's death, they should have moved in together and he should have taken Asuma's place.

I knew it had been foolish of me. It had been molded and created by jealousy because after his death I only had my father to turn to. He was always my safe haven and now I was a cliché ship lost at sea without my light tower.

"If it's yours, my room is a nursery now. I'll wait for you."

I didn't wait to see what he did. I went to the bathroom. Half of my face was covered in ice cream and some around my mouth where he had his lips. He had his lips there, on my mouth again. I didn't know what I felt about the kiss, I knew what I wanted to feel about it.

Same went for whatever was going on with Shikamaru. Months had passed without a word, not that I would have read anything he had written, not since he had said those words to me. Not since we parted in such a way.

I turned on the tap and found a washcloth to remove the worst before I filled the sink with water. I dipped my head under. Didn't bother to tie my hair up and I wonder how long I could stay there? Stay with my head under water, with the heat surrounding my face before I lost consciousness.

I wouldn't try and pulled my head out when there was a knock on the door.

"Ino?"

I opened the door and there stood Shikamaru alone this time. I pulled him in without a word and guided him to the stool in the middle of the room.

I went over to the cabinet and got out my first aid kit. None of his wounds were fresh, but they were all dirty and risked getting infected. He winched and I understood him, I wasn't being gentle. He hissed when I cleaned his open wounds with alcohol. Nothing looked too bad and nothing needed stitches.

I went over to the cabinet again. I pulled out a towel and a black box. It was Shikamaru's. We all had one of these boxes in our homes in case we would ever sleep over, need to change or for emergencies like these. Shikamaru's box was black, Choji's was green and mine was of course purple. It contained a change of clothing, toiletries and whatever we wanted and could fit. I had never looked in any of them, I knew what mine contained, I just knew that Choji's contained food, I had no idea what Shikamaru's contained.

I handed him his box and the towel.

"Shower, you stink."

I left the room before he had gotten up. The shower started running when I reached the kitchen. I wanted to go to my room to see what was upstairs and sleeping in the nursery of my daughter. I didn't dare.

I rested my hand on my stomach just as a jolt of pain shot through me again. It wasn't a kick. It didn't feel like any of her kicks. I ignored it, it would go away soon enough. It must have been the strain of rushing home only to find him clawing at my door, I was just upset. Some tea would calm me down, some herbal fruit tea.

My guess was that the child was his. I never bothered to ask how far Temari had been when he told me the news. The baby itself looked like it was about three months so she would have had it shortly after they moved.

The bathroom door was opened and I poured him a cup of tea. He looked like shit when he rounded the corner clad in a black t-shirt and lose fitting cotton pants.

He had lost weight, bruises covered his arms and what stuck out to me was the finger marks around his neck. Something had happened here, something bad. I walked over to him, pushed his hair out of the way and looked at those four red finger marks, he had the thumbprint on the other side, telling me someone had tried to strangle him. He hadn't been on a mission. I knew they didn't give shinobies mission when they were living outside of town.

"She was the one who did this?"

He hugged me, pulled me close and he cried on my shoulder. Hunched over my stomach he clung to me and he cried. He cried because I was right. He cried because the woman he loved had done this to him. It wasn't Shikamaru who had fucked up this time either. This wasn't his fault, he had just developed feelings for the wrong woman and she had done this to him.

She had caused my best friend so much pain I felt my blood boiling. I thought back on all the odd injuries Shikamaru had had over the years. All those small cuts, bruises and other injuries he had had on strange places. All those injuries you don't normally get on missions. I pulled him closer.

This was my fault too. I hadn't seen this, I hadn't seen his suffering. I had been too caught up in myself. I was too self-centered to see this. He was right, I was self-centered and self-involved. This was my fault too.

I ran my hand through his hair as tears streamed from both our sides. Someone had hurt my Shikamaru and I had let them turning a blind eye. I had only eyes for myself and that had caused him great harm and pain. I had failed him.

I jolted and screamed, this time the pain was worse. It was like it was growing in strength. Shikamaru let me go and looked at me confused.

"I stepped on a rock in my sandal."

It was a thin lie and I turned away from him I wasn't even wearing sandals. He didn't call me out on it. I handed him the cup of tea that was now cold. He drank it in one go and filled his cup with water drinking a few cups before he turned towards me again with a weak smile.

"You must be hungry too…"

I opened the fridge to find it empty, it was too long since I had thrown out Umeko and food had stopped magically appearing in the fridge. I opened the cupboard and found him a pack of crackers that he didn't spend too long eating through the pack. We shared a look then we laughed. We laughed because he was back, because we were together again. He was back this time, I could feel it. This was my Shikamaru.

"I have a stroller, we could go to the store."

Shikamaru nodded. He had been too keen on getting home as fast as possible. He hadn't stopped for food or drinks for himself. He started moving towards the staircase and I followed curious to what or who was waiting for us upstairs.

"I took him, I stole my child from her. I couldn't let her have it, I don't know what'll happen. I don't know if she'll want him back, but I'd rather die than to hand him over to her."

I nodded. I was caught up when it came to law and children. Had Shikamaru still been heir it wouldn't have been a question. They were married, the child was legitimate and therefore the Nara heir and Shikamaru's. Now he only had claim to it as a father and that didn't mean anything in our world. If it did mean anything it meant that he had fewer claims to it compared to the mother.

Then the next way would be to go to court to prove that she was abusive. She was from another town so it would be two trials. Our would grant Shikamaru custody, and hers would grant her custody and she would take him back.

The only way for Shikamaru to keep his child was for him to get reinstated as heir. I had been to see his father occasionally since he had left. I had seen the hurt in his eyes. Shikaku was not a forgiving man. I had at times been scared of him as a child hiding behind my father. He had seen things, he had done things, but I had never seen such a dark look in his eyes as when he was thinking about his son defiling him.

The child was awake when we entered. It was so small and innocent looking. What hit me was how much alike he was his father. It looked like a carbon copy hadn't it been for those dark, dark teal eyes. Those he had gotten from his mother.

It gave me some peace knowing he would be his father's son.

I let go of a small scream clutching the crib to stay foot. This time Shikamaru wouldn't let some bullshit excuse slide. He knew something was wrong and so did I. I knew the pain was emitting from my stomach and I was now scared senseless that something was wrong.

"That's not a rock, Ino, we have to get to the hospital. You're having your baby."

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I express my undying love for reviews and then receive none. Haha, I'll never do that again! Then again I must say I do understand the lack of reviews, how does one respond to a giggling Itach Uchiha licking someone's face? I don't even know myself.


	43. Rage

_This will be in third person and first person point of view. I hope you understand but give me a shout out if something is unclear._

COCOCO

News had quickly reached Sakura. There was a rather angry and very pregnant lady requesting her at the hospital. She had been described as very hostile and threatening. She wouldn't let anyone else even look at her. They had no other option than to seat her in Sakura's office.

Sakura had laughed knowing very well who it was. Ino hadn't even given her own name before demanding to see her. Sakura had noticed that Ino hadn't been too comfortable with her delivering the baby, but when it came to it there had only been one option.

Sakura ran upstairs to find Sasuke in some book bent double reading something he found in one of the houses he had taken to start exploring. They were all his and he were certain to find all the clan information he could possible find. He knew that Itachi already knew everything that was every written and then some more, but he would never tell.

"It's Ino! She's having the baby! Find your brother, I think he's somewhere with that girl."

That girl. Sakura knew very well who that girl was. Ino had no idea so she had kept her mouth shut. She hadn't wanted another scene again. Sakura had heard word that they had already been physical while Ino was pregnant. No good would come out of telling her, but Sakura would spill the beans when the worst dust had settled after the birth.

Sakura wasted no more time before she rushed off to the hospital. Her boyfriend would most certainly be safe from the elders harm very soon.

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I was screaming at some incompetent nurse that had entered wanting the check my pulse. I could tell her it was through the fucking roof and I would die if they didn't get a hold of Sakura soon and my blood would be on their hands not to mention the first born Uchiha since the massacre and the Yamanaka heiress. Then I had gone on to screaming something about a massacre at the hospital happening soon. I honestly don't remember much of it. It had been retold of Shikamaru who broke all five fingers on the hand I had been holding.

He regretted ever coming back. Regretted not telling me about his home life while I had the chance to destroy Temari. I would have, I was going to.

"It's going to be fine."

His voice was painted by the immense pain I was inflicting him. I hadn't noticed what I was doing before I heard his voice. I let go of his hand and screamed to the nurse outside the door that I needed a bandage.

I healed his hand again but the bones would be soft for the following day or so, so it was best to have it bandaged.

"Thank you for crushing my hand then fixing it again…"

There was his regular dry and sarcastic voice again. I had missed it.

I don't know how it was even possible, but Sasuke had found his brother before Sakura had made it to the hospital and they burst through the door ignoring the pleas and warnings of the nurse.

"Is she here yet?!"

Itachi knew very well that it could be very far away, common sense was gone when he heard the news that I was in the hospital.

I felt another one of what I knew were contractions and screamed. I screamed some extra to let out some frustration. Itachi had his shirt on backwards and his pants weren't zipped.

"I said you weren't allowed with me when I was giving birth! We talked about this just today, but you were more interested in licking my face!"

Confused looks shot through the room. It sounded much worse than what it had been. Still it was bad, he had been licking my face, in public none the less. There was probably gossip about us spreading at this very moment. I hadn't even been thinking about that.

"I think you should go if she doesn't want you here."

Shikamaru tried sounding determined and strong. He failed. He was still colored by my bone shattering grip not to mention who were intruding.

"Ino, I want to be part of this."

Sasuke was shaking his head. He had not wanted to be part of this and definitively did not want to be part of this when things started happening. I would under doubt let Shikamaru stay if he wanted. Or more like was willing to do it for me, I knew he didn't want to.

"No!"

I threw a picture frame from Sakura's desk. A picture of her and Sasuke I briefly noticed. I would have to replace that after this whole ordeal was over.

"You were licking my face, kissing me like you wanted to eat me then you went and fucked her! I don't want you here!"

I wasn't even certain what I had thrown. I hit him before he was able to shake the shock. I was shocked myself he let his guard down that easily.

"Fuck! Ino!"

Sasuke was whining as blood started seeping down Itachi's motionless face. Scalpel, I had thrown a scalpel. Served him right, I didn't feel the slightest guilty about it. Sasuke found some paper to try and collect the blood that was falling freely.

I screamed again and Shikamaru grabbed my hand again, I made sure not to break it this time. I didn't scream because of a contraction anyway, but it was a good excuse.

Shikamaru had been with Temari when she gave birth. It too had been violent and colored by anger, but not even she had been this wild. Shikamaru had never seen me this frantic, he had never seen me this angry. I had without hesitation thrown a scalpel towards Itachi Uchiha's face. Sure I had a special bond to him and such with the baby who was causing all of this, but you had to be insane to do something like that. He could probably kill the three of us right now only using five muscles.

"I think you should calm down Ino, it can't be good for the baby!"

It was Shikamaru's weak plea. Even if he knew Itachi and some of what he was capable of doing he was more scared of me at the moment.

"Sasuke, you dumb shit! You're at the hospital! Go get someone who can fix his god damn awful face!"

I pointed to the door. There was no reason to let him stand there bleeding on Sakura's office floor when there was a nurse to take care of him right outside the door.

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By the time Sakura had gotten there Ino had broken Shikamaru's fingers again, she had done a sloppy job healing them and Sakura had to correct her work much to her annoyance and Shikamaru's gratitude.

Sakura couldn't stay in that room any longer. What she had said had only further annoyed Ino and she had to been put to sleep. Her blood pressure and pulse had been so high it could have been a danger to the child. Sakura sighed and took off her gloves outside her office.

"Already?"

"It's dead, isn't it?"

Both Sasuke and Itachi were instantly at their feet. Itachi's head was wrapped with bandages. Sakura hadn't noticed when she first came in. She had bumped into Naruto who had been over the top happy but she hadn't caught a single word of what he said.

Sakura scratched the back of her head. She wasn't sure how to deliver the news. She had heard from Shikamaru that Ino had been very angry, especially at the brothers. He had left out the licking, the other girl and the throwing.

"Did Ino do that to you?"

Sakura noticed that it was a simple, sloppy job that had been done fixing whatever was hiding underneath the bandage. It was seeping blood painting the bandage red. Seemed like Ino's work from the look of it.

"She hit me with a scalpel."

Sakura started coughing. It had been Ino's work but not in the way she had been guessing. Now the news would be harder to break so she took to tending Itachi's wound instead.

It became clear he hadn't had anyone look at it. Some of the scalpel was still stuck stopping it from bleeding further. Hadn't the piece gotten stuck her office would have looked far worse and Itachi would have been lying in some hospital bed.

All she had to do was to stop his blood while she ripped out the piece and healed the wound making it shut. She felt Itachi shift as she started pulling on the metal piece. It had cut deep. Any other person would be screaming at this moment.

Sasuke was looking away from the open gash. He either couldn't believe that his brother had done such a mistake. She had hit him right where she was aiming. He hadn't even moved. Sasuke would sometimes let Sakura win, had it been sparing or an argument, but there was no way he or his brother would let someone hit them with sharp blades in the face just to calm them down. No, and he still couldn't believe that Ino had thrown a scalpel in his fucking face. She must have assumed he would avoid it too, but nothing in her face changed when she hit him.

She must really be mad about this other girl.

Interrupting his brother mid sex had to be the absolute most embarrassing thing he had ever done. He wasn't sure if he could ever look his brother in the eyes again. Sure he hadn't seen anything, and he had been outside shouting through the window.

He could somewhat understand that Ino was mad at him. He couldn't even start to understand Ino's and his brother's relationship. He knew better than to even try, but if what if what she said was true maybe the scalpel was called for. Sasuke would forever remember it was better to stay on her good side, it was far better and had saved him his life before.

Now he started thinking about how surprised he had been to see Ino in Itachi's sheets that morning. He knew Ino was one of the biggest prudes in town only beaten by Hinata, she would have been worse hadn't she been brought up with the free love shit.

Then why had she ended up in bed with his brother?

He knew she wasn't fond of him. It was easy to sense how she changed in his presence or just when someone was talking about him. She might just have hated him before all of this happened, the only one in town who disliked him. Almost every single girl had and some still have the dream of bagging Itachi. She has him, but she doesn't want him?

Ino doesn't want Itachi? Then why did she end up in his bed? From what Sasuke knew she dropped by from time to time and spent the night. With her size and condition he was about 87% certain nothing ever happened. He knew she wasn't even allowed when she was on bed rest. She wouldn't have risked it.

Trying to solve the question how this happened always diverted him from the question. How did Ino end up in this situation, why did she dislike his brother so much to begin with?

He would have to ask her once, he would detect if she was serving him a lie. No matter what Ibiki taught her, his eyes would see if not sense if she was lying. She would never be able to fool him. He would keep asking and digging until he found out the truth.

Now his girlfriend had finished fixing his brother's injury and he asked again what had gone down inside that room. It was all quiet and Sakura had exited without a baby.

"Well about that, those were just false, think of it as practice contractions."

She turned with a sad smile towards Itachi and added one horrible piece of information before she took off.

"They're never nearly as painful as real contractions."

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Okay, I'm awful. You were thinking this was going to be the chapter, the baby would finally arrive. I promise you'll/they'll have her within a week.

I also hope that my last comment didn't make anyone feel obliged to review. No matter how deep my love for reviews are I would hate if they were forced. Kind of like sex… Wait, what?

Goheneampong: I'm sorry? Hehehehehe, the baby will be here soon though, for real.

Guest: That's odd, my profile acts up and sometimes I don't get notifications that someone had reviewed and so on. I guess, the chapter was answer enough to your question. I would say from a literary point of view that it was the stress, but I'm not sure if it works that way and I'm too lazy to look it up.

TrapQueen: You're getting too used to my trickery it seems: "More than likely she's in labor." Haha! A lot is happening in these last chapters, but it's going to be more slow paced and not so super dramatic for a short while now. Also thank you for the flattery, if you had said it to my face I would have blushed and I'm not a blusher. That's just how good you are at boosting my ego, so super thank you!

ShikaIno: Yes, one of the reasons I extended the story was the fact that I got to redeem Shikamaru. He was a jerk but he always had his reasons too. I'm just surprised that nobody caught on the bruises and him willing to throw away his relationship with Temari so easily by claiming to be the father and the fact that he just pissed of everyone and moved. Guess it was so obvious to me because I knew writing it.

Accasia Li: Thank you! I'm starting to fall for the family theme myself. I'm certain you'll like the sequel to this story too then (self-promoting)


	44. Grandfather

Three weeks had passed. Three weeks where I didn't see Itachi. Three weeks where I stayed indoors with Shikamaru and his child, Shikadai. I was getting increasingly envious of Shikamaru and that little human he had. I wanted that too.

Still I would have to wait, Sakura said it wasn't dangerous to go over the due date. It would be weeks before they had to do something and I for one desperately wanted to avoid induced labor.

I tried smiling to the man opposite me. It was so odd being here now that things had changed. I would need the space when my baby came so I had gone to Shikaku to beg him to forgive his son, to take him back and give his grandson the protection he needed.

"No matter how strong-minded a woman is, she will show kindness to the man she loves."

It was the first thing he said after we finished our casual conversation.

"You're the most strong-minded woman I know, but I've never met anyone who loves my son as much as you do. I know he's back and I know why you're here. The answer is no."

I sniggered. I knew he would refuse him. I knew he would start like this. I would have to work him to make him change his mind. He wouldn't forgive Shikamaru that easily but I had a card or two up my sleeve. I would easy him up and then go for the kill.

"He has filed for divorce."

Shikaku humpfed. He wasn't impressed, he too could file for divorce with his wife and it wouldn't change what had happened.

"He's really regretting ever leaving."

"Good, he should."

Shikaku wasn't moving an inch and I was hoping he would have softened up some by now. There had to be some willingness to forgive his son. His only child.

"I think you should do this for your son, you're all he has left. You and his mother. Do you not love and care for your son?"

Shikaku was twirling his cup. I was getting mad, he knew his behavior was irking me. He had never seen me mad since I was a child. He was used to me being calm and collected as an adult outside of work. My last nine months had left me being everything but calm and collected and I simply couldn't understand how he could be so unruffled about rejecting Shikamaru.

"Do you have no love for your son? Have you forgotten how he adored you as a child, all the shogi matches you've played, how he looked up to you taking all your words to account? Have you forgotten how to love, Shikaku?"

He finally grabbed his cup of tea and drank it.

"I've never been a good father."

He got up and I had expected him to leave but he returned with a bottle of sake filling his tea cup before starting to drink.

"We Nara's aren't like you Yamanaka's. It's not that easy, we aren't like you and your father. He was a great father and you loved him, you still love him after he died. I was never a good father like that to Shikamaru."

"You were! Haven't you heard how highly he speaks of you? Haven't you heard, haven't you seen how he follows your advice? You're right, you're nothing like my father and I, but love is still love in all shapes and forms!"

I was crying and screaming in front of Shikaku, a highly respected and still somewhat scary member of our community. I couldn't understand how blind he was to his son, how blind could he be? Had he not noticed how Shikamaru loved and adored his father in his own way, the Nara way? In silence never wording it directly but by following every word and in everything he did.

Shikaku was silent still drinking and filling his cup.

"My son made it clear that he didn't want that title when he left."

Shikamaru's story wasn't mine to tell. I wanted to, it would have made things clear but it wasn't my story to tell.

"He didn't leave, he didn't leave any of us. He was gone but you never asked him why he was so compliant to move, you didn't ask him and neither did I! It's so easy to judge and so what if he made a mistake, he came back. He needs you!"

Shikaku took another swing of his tea cup. I knew he was starting to feel the effects to the alcohol now. I noticed the faint tint in his check and noticed how his eyes were starting to get that alcohol induced veil.

"Then if you're so cold and heartless that you can't forgive your son for making a mistake, what about your grandchild? You haven't even seen him, he's so lovable and kind like his father. He looks just like his grandfather, don't you want to know your grandson?"

There still wasn't a reaction from the older man. He looked out the window noticing a deer grassing outside. He watched it in silence. Watched it bob its head down, take a bite of grass and chew slowly while scouting for dangers.

He was so calm when everything inside me was turmoil. Everything was going fast in my mind, adrenaline from calling him out like this was filling my body and he was silently watching deer as if I was telling him about my new pair of shoes I had bought.

"You know, you'll be the closest thing my child will have to a grandfather too. I think my father would have been happy and proud to know that, but not when you're like this. Not when you're rejecting your only son for a mistake he had good reasons to do. You haven't even talked to him about him and you're willing to lose a relationship with your grandson because you're bitter and won't forgive Shika? I know you're hurt, I know he burned his bridges when he left but he's your son god damn it!"

He tipped his tea cup over. He had been drinking too much too fast but he still wasn't speaking. He was collecting facts and he knew I was hiding something and hoping his silence would make me slip but he had learned that from my father who again had learned it from Ibiki and such a simple trick wouldn't work on me.

"If you can't take him back out of the love you have for him and he for you, do it for your grandchild! And if you're still not capable then do it for me, for my child and my father! But act fast before you and your son lose everything and you wake up one morning and realize what cold and bitter monster you've become!"

I emptied my remaining tea on him and stomped off. I had emptied lukewarm tea in Shikaku's face and lived to tell the story. Watch the tea splash in his face, fall down and become devoured by his Jonin west as he tried to wipe it off his face with a frown.

I was just hoping he would take to his senses.

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Accasia Li: I know! I would have been so mad had just a fraction of this happen to me. So glad for the both of them that this is just fiction, hahaha.

TrapQueen: Congratulations on posting review number 100! I'm a trickster as you know by now. Haha, as mention I promise a child within less than a week but I'm not going to say when in case I spoil something. It's a slower pace and there will be mostly Ino and Shikamaru the following few chapters before Itachi is in the picture again and I promise relationship shifts then. I'm glad you liked the trickery!

ShikaIno: Haha, all my uni lit. classes has ruined me when it comes to writing, I analyze everything! And I often forget that not everyone does this ^^' Thank you, and it wouldn't surprise me if she at one points tries to kill him or die trying but not with the baby onboard.


	45. Family First

One week went by and nothing had happened. Nothing except the big envelope from Suna arriving. Naruto had been by personally with a sad look on his face to deliver it.

"It's not your fault, Naruto."

Shikamaru tried to offer him some comfort while trying to amuse his crying child. Naruto peaked up and allowed himself to smile.

"He looks just like you!"

They both knew what were in those papers, Temari or more likely someone else would be by to collect. There was nothing he could do about it beside run again, but a life on the run wasn't a life he wanted to offer his child. Temari would grow tired of tracking him, but he could never return home again.

"Yeah, wish he would sleep just as me too."

There hadn't been enough sleep for Shikamaru after he had become a father. Fatherhood did not offer a relaxing days in the shade so far. I did my best to help him, but what I was able to do was limited as well.

"Hey, Ino!"

I had heard Naruto so I went over to greet him.

"Wow! I thought your child was small and all that but you're huge, Ino!"

I thanked him for his kind reminder. I had forgotten that I looked like I had swallowed a small house.

"You look like you could burst any second."

"And I can, I'm nearing two weeks after my due date."

Naruto looked like he was in awe. I had no idea how much bigger I was around my belly now than I had been in my teens.

"Wow, are you having twins and how much of that will stick once you have the baby?"

I could feel a vein on my forehead pulsate. The only thing worse than having a child with Itachi would be having two children with Itachi and who was he to talk about my weight? How much would stick around once I had given birth? Nothing, I ought to beat some sense into that idiot!

Shikamaru gave Naturo a look, _the look_ and Naruto was not a stranger and nodded understanding while Shikamaru slammed the door in his face.

Shikamaru handed me the envelope now that Shikadai had started crying again. I opened the letter and checked all the stamps to see if one of them were missing or placed in the wrong place. A technicality that could buy us some time if we asked for new, correct ones.

No such mistake was made. I knew it was a long shot, it wouldn't have surprised me if Temari had made up these papers herself.

Thirteen days, in thirteen days a group from Suna would be by to pick up the child. If Shikamaru handed it over without a fight Temari would be so merciful that she wouldn't press charges against him. To be honest that actually was kind of her, he was guilty and could have landed him in prison for quite some years.

"Now we appeal it, you have to try and take her to trial. I'll witness and question her as a caretaker and I'll adopt it before trial so that he'll have a female concierge. It'll improve our chances, we might win."

Shikamaru shook his head.

"You can't adopt my child."

"You were willing to do the same for mine."

Shikamaru put Shikadai in the downstairs crib and Shikamaru rolled it in front of himself following me to the kitchen.

"I went to see your father a week ago, it's our only sure option. I'm sure Kakashi will rush the adoption process, I have a feeling he doesn't like Suna. He won't be having doubts."

"You had no right to see my father."

I filled a glass of water, drank it and put it down again before I answered him.

"I wasn't there because of you, I was there because of him. He made a great mistake when he wasn't able to put this behind him."

Shikamaru sat down shaking his head again.

"You know, you're the only one who's forgiven me without questions. I treated you the worst, Sakura told me when you were sleeping. I didn't believe you, I didn't believe you. I was thinking you were dramatic, using it your pregnancy as a ploy to get me to stay. You weren't, you weren't lying and I reacted by saying you'd be a horrible mother and didn't care when you told me you didn't care if you lived or died!"

He had done that. He had done all of that. I couldn't change that, but that wasn't my Shikamaru. I knew he must have been scared about the move, he was losing everything he held dear and everything that was safe to him. I knew he hates changes because he hates adjusting to them. I knew he loves it here, he loves the people and the place.

"I told my father I needed to put my family in front of the clan. He just responded that my clan wouldn't need me if they weren't number one."

I hadn't expected the whole ordeal to be huge and dramatic. I had expected there to be some argument. I had expected some fight. Father always had me at number one before the clan. Without me there wouldn't be no him and clan. He always put family first.

"Then if family is so important, why are you here? Isn't your father family? He thinks he hasn't been a good father to you, go prove him wrong and show him what you mean by putting family first!"

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Five more chapters to go, are we ready for this?

InoShika: The day I'm really late updating is the day you review that I'm good at updating. Still it's one a day, and I'm guessing that's what you were commenting. Haha, I won't have any of the aftermath in this story, but rather have it in a separate story, which is the reason why I'm updating so late. I got too wrapped up in writing a chapter. Shikaku needs to get a grip yes!

Sesshomaru: Haha! When you put it like that I almost feel bad for putting those things back to back, hahaha! You got that right, Ino is boss!

TrapQueen: Thank you! Why Ino is so forgiving and set to help Shikamaru will actually be addressed soon, even if it's a more fleeting reason and not really anything that's happen, it's more emotional. I liked it so much I kept the chapter short, but that's just me. I hope you went to bed if you're that tired! I'm such a hen mother so you have me worried!


	46. Torn Soul

Shikamaru hadn't come back until that evening. I had some soup boiling on the oven and he walked in with a big grin.

"So it went great? You're back in, you're heir again?"

I was thrilled because he looked thrilled. I had a hope everything would go back to the way they used to. How they always were and always should have been.

"I beat my dad in shogi!"

My hand made instant contact with my face, but if they were playing game I could only assume it had a good meeting. Shikamaru was absolutely beaming. He had played this game every single day he was home for as far as he could remember and he had never once been actually close to winning. Yet today he had done it.

"And?"

I couldn't care less about him winning or losing a game at this moment. Larger things were at risk. The house would be awfully crowded if we were both going to live here. I could make it work for Shikamaru, I could even offer him a house in the Yamanaka compound. Being leader wasn't all work, it had some perks too even if I wasn't acting leader.

Shikamaru basically was Yamanaka as I was basically Nara. It wouldn't have caused any problems.

"I'm not heir, but father agreed to let me in again."

I squealed and took a short little jump. He was back in. He would officially be Nara again. He must have been forgiven.

"Yeah, Shikadai is heir now. Nobody can touch him."

Shikamaru's laugh had me worried but I would let it slide. I felt the little princess inside me kick probably enjoying the laugh as much as I and I couldn't help but to laugh some myself.

Things would work out. Things would be fine again to some degree.

"But thank you, thank you for being willing to adopt him. I think we would have won together, we're good together."

His laugher was replaced with a smile and I went over and hugged him. He deserved this but I couldn't help but to think this was too easy. It was almost suspicious that he was fine again so easy. I didn't want him to be in a puddle crying because of what had happened to him, but I hadn't expected him to forget it as soon as he was back home again.

"I'm so happy for you."

"I wouldn't have been anything without you."

"And I nothing without you."

It brought me some joy thinking our children would be the same age and able to grow up together like we had.

"I'll always forgive you because you're part of me, part of my soul and I'll always love you."

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It's short, but it's to adorable. If I added something I feel like the significance would be lost. Sorry. The next chapter is four times as long and I've replaced Shikamaru with Itachi just to push in some last minute action before the baby arrives. If you ask nicely I might put up another chapter tomorrow morning.

\- EMG

TrapQueen: Haha, you can't wait for more and I give you this short little thing. Itachi will be back next chapter. He's a wild card and I can tell you so much that all your guesses about him and the child are wrong. The sequel I have a feeling will take you for a spin. Thank you as always for your kind words, I feel that they are too much.

ShikaIno: Ups, I have some of those stories. I keep thinking that this is the week, and then it never happens. I have started chapters for all my latest multi-chapter stories if that helps? Hahaha, I'm just so deep in this story right now.


	47. Be Good

Seems like no one wanted two chapters today so I went ahead and dropped it and did just one today as well, hope you'll enjoy

I had reluctantly packed my bag. I had no other choice now. Shikamaru had invited me to come live with him in his old house. I had declined. I didn't want to ruin his family bliss. He had told his father that he had put family first and his father could understand that now.

So I had packed my bag a short week later. Sakura had given me three days before she induced labor. I only had three days as a pregnant lady left and it was decided that I should spend those three days pestering the father.

It would give us time to get the final details in place too. There was still much we hadn't discussed yet. Things I had been putting off just because I hadn't wanted to, things I hadn't wanted to demand and ask of him.

I knocked on the door this time and he opened. I heard he had guests, he had been waiting me. Sakura light up even if she had seen me earlier that morning.

"It's like you've gotten bigger these last few hours!"

I could only laugh at her and hope she was wrong. She had told me now that the baby would start losing weight so she wanted her out, she was already so small so they wouldn't risk it.

Sasuke didn't say anything, just looked up at his brother where I had chucked the scalpel. I hadn't really talked to Itachi since that. I had briefly said it was wrong of me when I talked to him earlier that day, but I didn't say I was sorry. I wasn't sorry at all. I was glad I had hit him.

I sat or more tossed myself down in one of his chairs, he came back from the kitchen with a tub of ice cream he stood next to me eating straight out of the tub. If he was going to be a dick I would just go back home and die of birth complications on my own. It wasn't like I wasn't able to deliver my own child. I was.

"Do you have everything you need for the baby now?"

I shrugged, Shikamaru had stolen about half of my baby equipment with the polite lie that he was going to return it.

"I have all we'll need."

Of course he had. He probably has a spare to the spare, all top quality, the best you could buy. I was in a foul mood. It didn't help that it was just another hot day. I was glad winter was approaching. It was still several months away, but summer was ending.

"Then maybe we can borrow it when we're parents this spring?!"

I didn't say anything, got up on my feet and grabbed Itachi's ice cream. This was an epidemic. We were all puking out babies now. The only ones missing were Naruto and Hinata and even he seemed extra happy lately. Might have already knocked her up.

"Sakura finally agreed since I was going to die and all that."

This was going to be the worst academy class since, well us. I took a spoon full and felt myself melt further into the chair.

"Ino?"

"Yes, congratulations and all that, well preformed Sasuke, hope it's happy, healthy, whatever."

I pushed another spoon into my mouth ignoring the outside world until someone grabbed the ice cream again, Itachi.

"I wasn't done with that!"

"Neither was I!"

"I had it first!"

"I'm the guest!"

"It's my ice cream!"

"I'm pregnant!"

"Yeah! Hah! You said you don't eat sweets because you're pregnant!"

I tossed a pillow at his face and once again I hit him. This time the consequences were less bloody. The pillow fell to the ground no longer shielding Itachi we saw that he had a spoon of ice cream in front of his face that was now smeared.

I had never said I didn't eat sweets because of it, I had only insinuated it.

"Want me to return the favor and lick it off?!"

I got up and grabbed the ice cream again. This was the last time I would get up for the ice cream so he better not take it again or I would scream.

He knew defeat when he saw it and went back to the freezer and picked a less favorable flavor and sat down in the other chair.

"When you say return the favor?"

Sakura asked the question she didn't want answered. She had quickly realized that Itachi and I were like a horrible accident, you didn't want to see it, but you couldn't stop looking.

"Oh yes."

"You guys are horrible."

Sasuke was right, I wouldn't argue him on that point. We were horrible and I had a feeling we wouldn't get much better just because we were going to be parents in a few days.

"I don't understand this at all…"

Sakura muttered more to herself and Sasuke than to us. There was no understanding us. It couldn't be done, I didn't even understand myself then how was I supposed to understand me with Itachi? It couldn't be done.

I reached the bottom too fast. The others realized I was in a foul mood and let me alone to eat Itachi's ice cream. I had almost finished it and was now feeling sick of both myself and all the ice cream I had eaten. Why hadn't they stopped me?

"Are you looking forward to some days away from the Yamanaka compound?"

Sakura already knew I was desperate to get away. No offence, but I didn't respond well to those who rang my door just to see if I had given birth then rub my belly five times a day.

"The bigger my belly the more hands it fits."

I rested my hand on my stomach. She had slowed down her kicking now. Sakura had told me it was normal and nothing to worry about, I still missed it. I was almost afraid I would forget she was there if she didn't kick. Even if that was impossible, forgetting that I was pregnant when I was this size.

Sakura laughed at my comment and Sasuke seemed amused.

"I'm looking forward to choosing whom I share my body with."

Itachi was interoperating that comment the wrong way and looked away afraid he would start laughing.

"I'm too looking forward to it, Sakura and I can practice until we have our own."

I wouldn't let Sasuke practice on my daughter. That would have horrible consequences. If her parents didn't put her in therapy spending too much time with her aunt and especially her uncle would do just that.

"I'll rather put her on fire than let you two practice on her."

It would be a much more humane way to end her life, there would be that much faster and less pain for her.

"Come on Ino, we'd be good."

I wouldn't leave her alone with my child. They probably hadn't baby proofed their apartment, neither had Itachi. I would have to make him do that soon. This house was filled with sharp edges, stairs. It was a wonder both Itachi and Sasuke survived growing up here. It had been pure luck. It was a baby death trap.

"You'd do a good job killing her."

Itachi was laughing as I turned down Sakura and Sasuke's desperate plea to spend some alone time with our unborn child. Little did he know that I wouldn't allow him to be alone with her the first months either. I didn't trust anyone with my baby, not even myself.

"Come on, Ino, we can't be that bad!"

Haha, Sasuke thought it couldn't be that bad. He probably didn't even know how to hold the baby, not how to change diapers and what to feed her. He'd probably stick tomatoes in her mouth and choke her. Sakura would buy ugly clothes and force her to wear it, take pictures and torture the poor girl with them when she's older and she'll blame her mother for allowing her aunt to place her in such horrible clothes.

"Yeah, don't be too greedy on your baby!"

I'd allow them to watch her while she was awake, if she was sleeping they would just wake her.

"Drop it, Sakura would probably kill her with her strength and large man hands and Sasuke's girl hands will be too dainty and she'll drop her to her certain death."

"Do you have any fantasies about our daughter where she doesn't end up dead?"

Yes, the one where she lives with me in my home and nobody bothers us and I had full control. I don't think I should voice that out loud.

"I'm starting to think that it's you who shouldn't be allowed with her."

"Shut up, you're all cunts!"

I got up and wandered off. I had never really explored the main house. I had been inside it, spent several nights and many hours, but I had never been given a tour. I had no idea what it contained. I knew there were three bedrooms, bathroom, laundry room, kitchen, dining room and living room. Oh, and that room…

It didn't feel right going exploring on my own. I just wanted to find a place where I could sit alone without the three of them pestering me. What about letting my child be born before they tried kidnapping her and pestering me to spend time with her?

She would only sleep and eat the first time anyway. It wasn't like she'd be hosting imaginary tea parties and dance shows the first week.

Figuring I had walked far enough down the hallway I opened a door to my left, walked in and closed it behind me.

The layer of dust told me nobody had been in here for years. I could take a guess on just how many years. Nobody could have been in here since the massacre. It felt odd, I had never really thought about it. My child would be born into an almost extinct clan. Two dwindling clans actually.

I knew she'd be the first one born since the massacre, but I hadn't taken the time to ponder what it really meant. What it would mean for her even.

I saw that the room was connected to the vast garden behind the house. I knew it used to be well kept and grand in its heyday. Mikoto was often by our flower shop, from what I remember she was more interested in vegetables and fruits than flowers.

I remember she both traded, sold and bought seeds with my father. She had made some species and variants herself. She came over now and then during fall and spring when planting season was nearing. Father would visit her too and they would discuss plans for her garden.

Now it lay dead. There was nothing growing there but grass and weeds. There was none of her pumpkins and her sweet tomatoes. I could understand that Sasuke's favorite was tomatoes when he had grown up with his mothers.

I opened the door and sat down on the top of the small steps leading to the garden. A few roses that hadn't died were blooming but the rest was weeds except a lonely apple tree hanging heavy with fruit. Itachi hadn't care for plants and didn't share his mother's interest for growing your own food. Neither had his father I remembered. It was easier and less time consuming to go to the marked and buy whatever you wanted and needed.

They didn't understand the difference.

I sat there thinking about how things had been and wondered how things would be. A lot had happened in our lifetime, it hadn't been easy at times. I wondered what kind of world I would be bringing my daughter into. I knew I couldn't protect her against all dangers.

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Sesshomaru: I know, I'm looking forward to it too! I hope stealing his ice cream qualifies as handing it to him, haha!

TrapQueen: Short and sweet like this response as well. I have a cat on my chest washing her crotch as I'm typing his. Hope you're pleased with the more lengthy chapter.


	48. Unraveling

"Sakura and Sasuke went home."

He had found me. He didn't need to look that hard, I wasn't hiding in any way. I had been sitting in the doorway for quite some time just watching and thinking. Thinking about small things really, then small things had become matters that made me almost cripple with fear. Things I couldn't change on my own. I hated feeling helpless and weak, but who was I to change a system, traditions and way of life, I was just Yamanaka Ino.

I found it hard to believe that Mikoto was one to pressure her sons as Itachi had said, I found it hard that she would judge Itachi for what he was able to and what he wasn't.

Then I remembered that things weren't always that easy for women. I had only grown up with males thinking I was one of them at times. I was used to being respected, but then there were those, like Hinata I assumed who weren't respected and put on the sidelines. Tenten was a perfect example of that, to be honest I don't even know if she's alive. I was part of the problem of looking down at women. She was just as good as her male partners, but nobody paid any interest in her.

It had always been the men who decided, guided and sat the standard. That was why Shikamaru's mother had to wait and hope that her husband would forgive their son so that she could have him close again. I'm sure Mikoto loved her sons just the same whatever they did but she wasn't allowed because it was the man who decided the family relations. Men decided the course for the family or clan and women accepted following the course that was staked out.

That was why my mother's betrayal was so deep, it went against the rules of society. It wasn't my father who had told her to leave, she had left her husband and only child out of her own free will. She wouldn't let herself be dictated out of the morals and rules of society. I would never forgive her for what she did, because she left me. No mother should ever leave her child.

I would never leave my child, I would always have her with me. I knew Itachi had a higher rank than me and could decide over our daughter, but I wouldn't let him. I wouldn't let him win over me. Not that there would be anything to fight over. I had faith we would do this together. We could be a team when we needed to.

"Two more days."

I said it just as much to her as to him and even myself. In two days she'd be out here with us and the real hardship would start. There would be no rest from then on out and the next sixteen years give and take. I was ready for it, I was ready to get rid of my fleeting life and finally have a purpose. Still I felt like I would be leaving something behind, something that had at time been good.

"Are you ready?"

He walked over and sat down next to me. He could remember childhood days playing with Sasuke in the yard, their father watching and their mother making sure nothing was broken and no one died. Happier times. He couldn't help but to wonder if his child would do the same, he would love to chase her, play with her and make her laugh like he had done with Sasuke. It would be different this time around. He would make time, he would devote himself fully to this child.

"I was sad that day at the hospital, not only because you tried to ruin my beautiful face, but also because nothing happened."

I hadn't really tried to ruin his face, I just wanted to inflict harm and pain. He had deserved it too and I felt like having another go just because he was bringing it up. Things would have to change, things couldn't go on like it had. He had to make choices.

"Then again I don't blame you."

I had every right to pull that stunt on him. I should have hit him with that picture frame too. Sakura had been pestering me about it, it was a special gift from someone I didn't care enough to remember the name of. She had probably dropped some name to try and impress me. She should know that I wasn't impressed that easily anymore. Being clan head for quite some years now I had met important people and they didn't differ from commoners.

"I'll be more discreet from now on."

I pushed him down from the steps, it wasn't a long fall or much of a fall at all. He rolled over on his back considering it safer on the ground where I couldn't as easily reach him. I couldn't believe what he was saying. After all this time, after all the warnings, after all the fights.

I wish he had injured himself. I wish I had the scalpel again. I couldn't believe my own ears, that he had said such a thing. That our recent connection had meant something, but it seemed like I was the only one feeling it.

He would be more discreet?

"I can't you have you flying off to some skank, we'll both need you."

I wouldn't be raising his child while he flew off to his mistress when he felt the need pressing. I wouldn't stay at home while he was out having fun when he became tired of life at home. He was in on this or he was out, I couldn't have him doing as he pleased when he pleased. I wouldn't be his stay at home wife to look after his child when he slipped off to sleep with his mistress. I wouldn't degrade myself in such a fashion.

"She's not some skank Ino."

"Then what is she, what is she to you?"

I had wanted him to dub her his girlfriend or something of the likes because that would be easier to deal with. A girlfriend, that I could live with, if she was something meaningful to him. If he had feelings for her, if he wanted to get something out of their relationship I would respect and support it.

"We haven't put a name on it yet, but neither have the two of us."

"Yes we have, we're parents!"

He did the right thing lying put on the ground or else I would have pushed him down once again. How could he say that we were nothing? After all we had gone through, good and bad. I had experienced more with him than I had no other. Still he couldn't put a name on us, we were having a child together and he hadn't take the time to define what we were to each other.

"Either you're by your daughter's side or you're gone!"

He gave me a look trying to warn me that I was being unreasonable. I wasn't. I had every right to demand his full attention and focus for his daughter. I wouldn't have him half-assing being a father to my daughter. I wouldn't let him disappoint her because he was spending time with his "haven't put a name on it yet."

I had more respect for myself and this child would be mine if he wasn't serious about her. I knew the pain of having a parent walk out on you. I wouldn't allow my child to feel that pain, to feel not good enough for her the love of her mother.

"You know what I feel about that woman too!"

I got up and left him behind lying in the dirt where he belonged right now. I walked a few doors further down into the hallway and entered the room. I slammed the door behind me and screamed when I saw where I had ended up.

Itachi didn't have that many trophies and diplomas in his room because he apparently had a whole room devoted to them. He had won something for everything, that probably included some best in show trophy from some dog show, where he had competed as a dog if that wasn't clear.

I left that room again only to find Itachi standing in the hallway behind me.

"Why did you kiss me?!"

I was screaming down the hallway. He would have heard me perfectly fine had I just spoken to him. He didn't seem to be sure about that himself. He stood still, not moving, not changing his facial expression. My screen bounced off the walls down the long hallway.

All of it seemed so pressing. It felt like blood would come seeping down the walls or the whole building would collapse on itself.

"You're just a big user!"

He had used me for his ploy to keep his brother safe, he was using bad aim girl as much as she was using him. It was only I who wasn't using anyone. I felt like an innocent pawn in this circle of abuse. I had always been honest about my intentions. I had been frank with Itachi in all and everything while he was deceptive and deceiving.

I wish I wasn't so scared about entering his mind. It was only then I could be certain what he was thinking and feeling. It was just why I would never enter his mind. It was why I would never risk losing myself in his mind. It would be too much for me. What he had done, lived through. It would be too much so I would never understand him, what he was thinking and what he was feeling.

He was a mystery to me. I couldn't read him like I could all others. There was nearly ever anything that told me where I had him, I only had his words to go by. Those I felt had lost their value when he only spoke words and sentences I didn't want to hear.

"I know I've done you wrong."

Done me wrong, he had ruined my life. He hadn't just done me wrong. He had tricked me, he had fooled me and trapped me without second thoughts or doubts. He had stringed me along for so long and I was just realizing it.

"I want you to commit, we're going to be a family now!"

He took a step forward which caused me to take one back and he stopped figuring the idea. I didn't want him any closer to me. I couldn't stand to be too close to him right now. I needed him at a distance. Images of our night together, later kisses and advances kept flying through my mind. He had me where he wanted me all this time.

"You keep pushing me away then get angry when I try to move on!"

I didn't want to admit I've been unreasonable with him but I knew I had. I had every reason to, but it had been wrong. It wasn't right of me to keep pushing him away then getting mad he was so far away. I still didn't want him to have anyone else than me. I had told him where and what I wanted him to be. He hadn't complied, even if he so willing me had put me in this situation.

"Why did you do this to me?!"

Why did he do this to me? What if this anger made me resent my daughter? What if I wasn't able to love her because she wasn't planned, because I felt tricked into having her, because I hadn't wanted her right now? What if she hated me because I thought she had ruined my life? She had, she had ruined my old life, but who had said the new one wouldn't be better?

I felt like I would love her, but what if something changed a few years down the road?

"I have feelings for you, strange ones, ones I can't understand. I see now that impregnating you in order to save my brother was the wrong way to deal with those feelings."

He saw that now. I too had strange unexplainable feeling for the man in front of me but not once would I go off thinking it would be better to sort out those by having a child with him.

"You tricked me, you play on my emotions, you manipulate me, you string me along then you go get together with another woman!"

If his eyes bled to red I might just find myself attacking him. I was that angry. I was fuming. I was supposed to be here for the next two days perhaps. It would never work out. We would have killed each other by that time. I needed to escape, be with something who wanted to best for me and not the best out of me.

"You're Yamanaka, you've been part of the torture and interrogation force, don't tell me that you didn't want to be deceived if you really were!"

I should have seen his games and tricks. I should have seen them all coming but I had been blind to them. I had ignored them and turned away as if I hadn't wanted to see what he was doing with me how he was affecting me.

It didn't make it my own fault, he had still done it.

"Just fuck you!"

I wasn't winning this. He had a point. I had let him get to me, I had let him get his way because I was weak. Even as an adult I was helplessly weak. I should be ashamed of myself. I knew my father had been had he knew his baby girl had let herself been used in this way.

My teammates probably were and what would Asuma have said? Would he have laughed at how foolish I had been? Would he have cried because of what I have gotten myself into? He would have been ashamed that he had been my sensei and I was still brainless enough to end up in bed and pregnant with Uchiha Itachi.

"Ino…"

"Then you decide, it's either me or her, I can't promise you anything. I don't know what it'll be between us, I don't know what I feel about you, but perhaps we have a chance, and perhaps it's worth trying for our daughter."

I walked past him. I really needed the use the bathroom and I was positive I wouldn't be able to hold it anymore. I wouldn't have been able to hold the tension, the revealed lies, the red string that revealed another loss after another. I couldn't stand how he was looking at me.

Looking if I had broken everything because I was finally able to see through him, that the spell he had cast over me was broken and I was finally standing up for myself and my daughter.

I was alone when I went out. Couldn't sense him anywhere. He had made his choice and my questions and maybe's must not have been good enough for him. I was glad. I wouldn't have been able to spend time with him now.

The wounds were fresh and still bleeding.

When the sun set and the cold crawled in through doors and windows I was done waiting. He wouldn't come. I was upset, I felt abandoned. He had left to give me space, I was happy but he had left me.

I walked over to Sakura and Sasuke, it seemed like an unusual cold night and I noted that the moon would become full any day now. It was beautiful, hadn't it been so cold I would have stayed to taken it. I was shivering, I wouldn't want to risk anything. I wouldn't risk getting sick when my princess had a date for her show.

I needed Sakura's female support because I kept making a fool out of myself in front of Itachi had he kept turning me down. Why I was even trying was a mystery to me, I kept thinking and messing I didn't even like him and especially not in that way. I should understand by now that we weren't going to happen and I should just forget my repressed feelings again.

I had come clean about how I felt with him and he had taken off running. I didn't know what I was feeling for him, I didn't know what was me and what came from the pregnancy. It all felt confusing to me, but I knew I wanted to stay close to him in some fashion. I wanted him so desperately to be a good father to our child. I knew what good father's meant to daughter. I would give so much for my father to be able to be a grandfather to her.

Sasuke was in the kitchen having supper smelled like something fishy and I wouldn't be staying longer than I had to. I didn't greet him or gave him an explanation to why I was there. He just pointed to the ceiling and I knew Sakura was there. He knew, he just had a feeling we were doomed to explode sooner or later, but not even he had guessed the very first night.

She was in the bathroom getting ready for bed I heard her brush running through her short hair. I covered the bed with a blanket and lay down on it waiting for her to finish. There was no way I so willingly would lay down on their pool of sin and bodily fluids. She made a little jump when she suddenly saw me lounging in her bad. She was startled as I had made it into her bedroom without as much as a knock or word.

"What's the matter? Is it the baby?"

Not directly.

"Itachi left me alone."

Sakura growled. I was not supposed to be left alone in my state. He knew that, taking off without telling was beyond reckless. She had explained to him how far over her due date she was. She had told him the dangers a breeched baby could cause for mother and child. There was a reason Ino had willingly packed her bags and came to him. She was hardly allowed to shower alone.

"We had a fight."

Sakura sat down on the bed next to me continuing flossing her teeth waiting for me to tell her what the fight had been about. She reminisced to a time after the war when I had tried to date my sorrows away. She was going out steady with Sasuke but I was trying everyone thinking he was the one, then finding out he was just like everyone else.

"He told me he has feelings for me, not what kind. Kinda told him the same went for me and I was willing to try for our daughter. She'll probably hate me. Can you tell Sasuke that on second though he can still buy her?"

Sakura sighed. We were worse than she and Sasuke had been in their early years, couldn't even compare. We were constantly fighting and there was no understanding Itachi. Sakura saw no pattern when it came to his feelings and interactions. He had decided to impregnate the most difficult woman in their town, what could have possessed him to do that? It could have only been one thing besides insanity.

There was a reason I had been with Sai. He was an outsider and didn't know what he was getting himself into. He should consider himself lucky he was let lose. I would have been a nightmare to him. He didn't have the emotional range and understanding to control and please me. Neither did Itachi it seemed like.

"Don't be silly, she won't hate you."

"I… I feel like she's ruined my life, it's not her fault and I don't blame her, still I feel this way."

Sakura lay on her back next to me and laughed. She often laughed at me and my worries. They were many and often trivial. I didn't know what I would have felt had I known that my father hadn't wanted me. Perhaps I would have felt nothing, because he had proved to be a good father. He worked hard to keep me happy and proved that even if he had initially wanted me, he had ended up loving me and not being able to live without.

"Oh Ino, you're not the first and last to think your child has ruined your life. I already feel that way about my child. I think about all the wine I won't be able to drink, all the missions and work I'll have to turn down, no more parties and no more spontaneous trips, but it'll all be worth it once we're mothers. When we see our child for the first time, get to hold them and watch them grow nothing from before will matter."

She might have a point. I was letting go of a rather carefree life. What kind of life was I leaving behind? I had come home with a guy I didn't know, disliked, after meeting him in a shady bar on a regular Tuesday. I wasn't letting go of something good. I hadn't been living a life with worth, I had been crawling and clawing just to make it to the next day.

"I guess you're right."

Why did Sakura always have to be so sensible?

"I think I'll spend the remaining days with Shikamaru."

"His kid is so cute, and constantly keeping him up, I love that kid."

I was able to laugh about it now that he wasn't keeping me up as well. It was a great payback for all the missions and practices Shikamaru had overslept for, not to mention all the times he had fallen asleep while I was telling him something. I would forever be grateful to Shikadai for that, I'd give him whatever candy and noisy toy he wanted because of that.

"Just give Itachi some time, he's scared. He'll come around."

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I've been displeased about my own writing as of recent. I think it's all to shallow and hardly diving under any surface. I was telling and not showing you could say and I hate that type of writing. So the result is that my 2.200 word chapter turned into a 3.700 words long chapter. Hope you all think it's improved and better.

TrapQueen: Yes, she's an interesting cat and she hates that my daughter is spending time with me this week. She doesn't like sharing her mother. Hope I made the suspense all the much worse with this chapter and argument! I'm just evil like that.

Sesshomaru: Ino is boss, she'd make Itachi squeal and cry likes a dog if she put her mind to it. He should be happy she's just taking his ice cream away from him.


	49. Absolutes

I had left before Sakura and Sasuke had returned from work. I didn't want to meet them. It was too awkward. I was nine months pregnant, about to hatch any second, having an argument going with the older brother and neighbor to my host, and the whole thing about said older brother and neighbor was the father of the child that was accident from my side and planned from the father's side. It was a mess.

I had packed my bag again and placed them by the door ready to leave this haunted palace.

I was ready to go when I noticed that the door to _that room_ had been opened. I had been wandering around the house one last time to see if I was forgetting something. I would have hated to forget something vital and having to go back to him to get it. That would have been awkward to say the least, he would probably help me look too that considerate bastard.

I hadn't heard him come, I hadn't sensed him. Still there had to be someone who had opened the door, if it hadn't been the Uchiha ghosts who had been alone and free to roam the house last night. I wondered what they were feeling about the situation. What his parents would be thinking. I was only a Yamanaka. From what I had heard they had wanted for him to marry within the clan, distant relative, but it had been important to keep his genes and blood within the clam. Like, ew. I would never have married a Yamanaka no matter how distant.

I had tip-toed over to the door and looked in expecting to find a wide range of different scenarios. I expected to find Itachi, but I didn't know what Itachi I would find. It could have been an angry one, it could be an Itachi willing to make peace, hah! But it could also been an Itachi that had retreated into his mind, seeing and conversing with those who had wanted him to spread his seeds within the clan, I had to stop thinking about that...

He had opened the door leading out to the back yard and was sitting in the door frame with his back turned against me. His shoulders and head were slumped as he was kicking his feet forward and backward kicking his heel on the wood sending a small thud through the room.

I walked over to him and sat down. He slowly turned and looked at me before his gaze was back at the small pond where koi fishes used to swim many years ago. When there used to be a family living here and not just him. Now it was just another thing that had to remind him about happier times, easier times.

I didn't understand how he could live there, in that house. Not because of the whole ordeal that had happened in that very room, but it had to be torture for him. He had happy memories in every room, as well as bad ones and he had to be reliving those every day. He had to be tormented by it. The Uchiha ghosts were in all the walls, in every room.

"I went to end things, I wanted to, but I don't do maybe's Ino. I don't do perhaps."

Itachi had lived a life of absolutes. Where things were either right or wrong, good or bad.

He only knew life and death, darkness and light.

He didn't know anything in between. He made up his mind, he decided on something and then he stuck to it. He had decided to go for me, but I was an uncertainty so I wasn't actually an option. He had made his decision final now that he was telling me that despite everything it would never be the two of us.

"I didn't even look back the last time I left this place. I was certain what I had done was right."

He had never let the ghosts see how their deaths had affected him.

"I never anticipated making it back and sometimes I act that way."

He looked down on his feet, they were still now just hanging over the edge like mine. He was being honest with me, real honest about himself for the first time. I felt like I was let into him, let into his mind. He had finally opened it to me.

He had never intended to make it so far. He had lived his life hated, he was considered the worst and how many hadn't wanted him dead? How many hadn't tried to kill him, no matter how talented and powerful you are one of those could have succeeded.

He had intended to die by Sasuke's hand. We had all heard word that he had. It was a surprise to everyone when he had returned and no one knew the story on how. We didn't know, he hadn't told us and everyone knew better than to ask him. He was a mystery to most of us. We didn't know much about him besides how willing he's go for his little brother.

Would he feel the same about his daughter?

"I am selfish and inconsiderate because that's how I grew up. I was never told about love, and neither did I feel it often. I was never taught how to be considerate. It was me against everyone."

He had grown up so differently from me. I didn't know what death was the age he was when he had claimed his first life. I didn't know what war was until I started the academy and he grew up in it. He was a product of violence, indifference and loneliness.

When he was born there had been war, he had seen it as a child, been introduced to its hardship and what human's are capable of. He was born in somber times, darker times and even when the war ended relationships were shaky, more than they had been after the recent war. It was another war brewing and all the officials knew, they saw an indispensable weapon in Itachi and he had been treated as such.

I on the other time had been born in a time of peace. I had grown up in more harmonic times. I had learned to love. I had been shielded from the worst, I wasn't introduced to battle fields, I hadn't seen anyone die until I was a teenager and I had the proper support in my team and father when I first did. I had someone to rely on, while he had himself and only himself.

He had done unspeakable acts. He was never interrogated when he returned. If he was there were no papers on it. I don't think even Ibiki would want to hear what Itachi had to tell and some egotistic part of me didn't want to know either.

It was better not knowing what he had been through because then it wasn't so real to me. It was better know having seen what he was hiding inside.

"People always look at me with awe and fright."

He was right, there were only a selected few that treated Itachi as a normal human being, but there was still something to it. They never acted normal, not even his brother. They all knew what he had done, even civilians. He couldn't find someone who saw him, they only saw this man who had done unspeakable things causing fear, but he had done it for them so he was to be looked up to.

"I understand them and I don't blame them, but I'm just like everyone else. I do feel, I do think and I do see. I want to be part of the community, not someone who's above."

He sighed. He was just like everyone else but he was treated like a different species, mass murdering genius. Earlier I would have thought it was his own fault, he had done it willingly. He had gone to it with open eyes, he had done it willingly, and he had sealed his own faith. It wasn't always that easy. It wasn't always black and white.

He had done what he did to save those he cared about, he had done it to save his brother, to save the lives of countless strangers. If he hadn't done it, then who else? No one else in this town would have gone through what Itachi had. He had agreed to it, but it wasn't out of his own free will. It was out of compassion.

The same reason I got out of bed, why I went to work when all I wanted to do was to mourn my father. I knew that if I did, it would leave others to mourn their loved ones, only I could prevent that so I got out of bed dutifully every morning until I snapped.

So the same could have been said about me. I had willingly taken the job Ibiki had offered me. I had tortured and inflicted pain willingly. I had done it with open eyes. I had done it out of my own free will, still it had changed me. Still I had gotten sick and I was no longer the blond who wasn't quite as good as them among my friends but made up for it by being pretty, pure and innocent.

"Then I saw you again after I had gotten to Sasuke, I saw you around town and you always had the same look in your eyes when you saw me. It looked like you deeply hated me."

He laughed and looked shortly over at me again. I wouldn't have gone so far as to say that I had deeply hated him, but he wasn't too far off.

He had irked something inside me. There were a lot of us who had made sacrifices. Some bigger than others, but he's had been the biggest and he became the face of us all. I knew I had been wrong, but I was so mad that he was the hero. He had killed his clan, he had made his brother hate him for all those years.

I had been forced to the frontline and I had never asked to lose my father. I wasn't part in my father's death and I would do everything in my might to prevent it. I could have never killed my own father and in my foolish mind I had disliked him. He had shown more strength than we. He had killed his father and I was crippled because I had lost mine.

"You were so annoyed, it was so clear that you didn't want me anywhere near you. You avoided me and in town meetings you did you best to argue me, speak against me and prove me wrong. It was like you were out to get me."

He laughed again. I always made it a point to either strongly disagree or add something to whatever Itachi had said and suggested. It was to show that he was an idiot for suggesting such nonsense or to show what he was an idiot and his ideas needed improvement.

I had hated how smug he had been in my old chair. I had been the center of attention most of these meetings. I ran those, I always had something to say and I felt eventually that my meanings and views were listened to and valued. Now she was pushed back and hardly second in line because when you were competing with Itachi there was only first place and that place was reserved for him.

"It was in that bar I decided. I had to try. It had to be you. Because in your eyes there never was any admiration, there wasn't any praises and compliments, there was no fear. I could destroy you in the blink of an eye, but you never showed fear when you saw me."

There had been a time where I was terrified of him. Meeting Itachi would be one of the most dangerous things I could think of. He had been a dangerous wanted criminal. I knew some of what he had done and who he was serving.

Now that I knew who he was and what he was about I didn't fear him. He could so easily destroy me but I knew, I felt that he never would. He wouldn't even have ended myself had I initiated a fight. Sure, he'd beat me senseless probably. He wouldn't have taken my life.

"You don't even fear my eyes."

I knew what they were capable of, and that I was scared of their abilities but I wasn't scared of Itachi. I knew he would never use them, he might never use them again. There was nothing to fear. So I looked at them without any fear no matter what color they showed. It didn't matter to me, it was still him behind them.

"You just hated me, and I'm afraid after all this you still do."

I scooted closer to him. I couldn't hate him, not after all that had happened. I was tied to him by blood now, the blood of our daughter and for her sake I could never hate him. He wasn't always in the clear with what he did; he didn't always consider my feelings in what he did.

He had his reasons behind everything. He wasn't used to others taking his feelings into consideration so he had nowhere to learn it from. He had been left to fend for himself since he was a child. It had been him against everyone. How could I then expect him to always know and him understanding all the time?

He laid his arm around me when I came close to him and offered me a smile.

I felt warm under his touch, even as the sun was setting. I felt safe under his arm as if things were going to end perfectly, like things were going to work out between us. They would have to, we were going to be parents.

I rested my head on him watching the last glimmers of the sun die out and another night would be born. We set like this for a while, to me it seemed like hours. The moment didn't need any words. We were comfortable and perfectly content in each other's company.

He had been scared. He was always scared.

"I'll never hate you and I never have, it might seem like it at times."

We shared a laugh and looked out in the yard. We stayed like that for a while. We were just enjoying the silence of each other's company. Soon nightfall would come and it would be too cold for us to sit like. For now, his heat was just warm enough. His comfort and presence was all I needed. It felt good being close to him. I could be used to being in his arms.

I could forget all that had transpired the evening before.

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ShikaIno: I found myself missing you these last chapters, haha! I hope this chapter made up for some of the douchbagging Itachi has been up to! All I'm saying is that there will be surprises after the child is born, but I guess you were already expecting that.

Sesshomaru: I know! Tomorrow it'll be done! Thankfully I've got a sequel lined up!


	50. Arrival

"Itachi?"

I broke him from his trance and he looked at me with an almost tranquil smile.

"It's just this one thing."

I almost felt guilty I was about to break off our moment in such a way.

"I know it's crazy."

It really was, but I needed to ask.

"I read in one of the maternity books."

I would have never gotten an idea like this on my own.

"That to get the labor to start…"

The one Sakura would start tomorrow morning if nothing happened.

"You could try having sex."

It was a great way to ruin the moment, more like the hours we had shared together in peace. I had invited him to let me make a fool out of myself again, to reject me. There was no way he'd agree to something like that. Even if he did, what would it mean?

I had read it. It was on the long list of things that could naturally induce labor. It was on the list of suggestions to naturally start labor I had all tried out besides this one last thing that I was asking Itachi now.

There was no way he was going to agree to this.

It was a long shot, it was a desperate attempt to make her come out but I was desperate at this point. She should have been there months ago according to the so called experts. I was tired of waiting and I wanted to avoid something as risky as induced labor.

It didn't have to mean anything besides that we wanted our baby girl soon and to avoid the risks of an induced birth. It didn't have to mean anything for our relationship and it hadn't needed to change anything between us. I've heared about friends who have sex with eachother just because they are comfortable with one and another and enjoy sex. Then why couldn't we have sex because we wanted our child, it was normally why one had sex.

It wouldn't be romantic and tender, it would be emotionless and down to business. We wouldn't be doing this out of feelings or because we wanted to enjoy ourselves. It would be preferable if we in fact did not enjoy it at all.

"How would we go about that?"

"I mean, we could just do it here. No enjoyment, as little touching as possible. Just kind of in and out?"

This was embarrassing. He had sounded so hesitant when he asked, but he hadn't turned me down, he was considering it. Just in and out? What was I, a teenager explaining his first debut? I felt blood flowing to my cheek and my face felt so hot. I was just like a teenager.

"And then we'll go on like it didn't happen?"

I would have gone on like nothing had happened after the first time we had sex but the whole pregnancy made that impossible. The whole having a baby and he finding he was a father put a stopper for all of that.

I nodded.

He lounged for my lips knocking me down on the ground. He was quickly on top of me kissing me in some strange position due to my belly. The shock and surprise left me unable to understand before he moved over to kissing and sucking on my neck. I was stunned.

He had acted so fast as so passionate. If I had thought I had been hot earlier it was nothing compared to what I was feeling now. Every touch left my skin tingling and I was begging for more with my mouth open but no sound left it.

He knew what he was doing, what he was doing to me. He didn't seem fazed at all by my belly and he ran his hand down my body only stopping when he reached my butt and he grabbed it.

So much for as little touching as possible.

"Just for the baby, right?"

He didn't give me any response and instead moved on to opening my dress. Small whimpers and moans were leaving me at this moment. I had to admit that being single had not been easy during this pregnancy, hormones Sakura had laughed and told me. I felt like I had waited for this for nine months.

I was glad he had decided to so blatantly ignore the no touching rule from the get go. He was already making me feel things I had never felt before.

"Itachi! Stop!"

I had to tap him on the shoulder to get his attention. He was busy rolling up my skirt while removing his own shirt. He seemed to be in a hurry, and hadn't it been for the recent development I would have wanted nothing more than to feast my eyes upon a shirtless Itachi.

I wasn't having second doubts, I was certain I had felt something that wasn't related to what Itachi was doing. Boy did that make me feel something too.

"What? Too much?"

He had definitively improved his game the last nine months and I tried not to think of why. This wasn't the time for that. It would only make me upset, it already had to some degree. He had went to end things with her and the day after he had said he was sticking with her because I was an uncertainty but he had no problems agreeing to sleep with me mere hours later.

"No, I felt something!"

"I hope so."

I punched him and felt the same jolt again. Something was definitively happening. It was not something related to Itachi's activities. Sure they made me feel something, this had been lining up to be the best sex I had ever had.

"Go get Sakura!"

I had a feeling something was happening, something baby related. Itachi got up on his feet and strolled off. This felt a lot like the practice contractions. They were coming rapid but I had to be a long way from actual labor because there were no pain.

Yes, that was definitively the same jolt again but it felt nothing like those two weeks ago. It was just the same movements, it was the small jerk. I didn't feel any pain, they must have just started and there could go hours before something happened. First time mothers spent the longest time in labor.

It was a good thing I had my bags packed by the door.

"Yes, you're in labor!"

Sakura squealed and clapped her hands underneath my dress. I hadn't been too thrilled about how she had carelessly dived under there and ripped my underwear off like she had been removing my coat after entering a dinner party.

"I'll carry you to the hospital, no arguments."

"Yes, one!"

Sakura appeared from underneath my skirt again. Her eyes were wide and a big smile was on her face. It looked strained to some degree. It seemed like "everything is going to crash and burn but I'm smiling real wide so maybe we'll enjoy the heat from the fire before we burn and die" kind of smile. She had an objection to going to the hospital?

"There isn't any time, this is happening now. Get Sasuke!"

Oh, I was so glad this is turning in to a family thing. The more the merrier? Who wouldn't want Sasuke to join them while giving birth? Okay, I would have in my younger years, but I would not have agreed with that Ino today. It was bad enough having Sakura all the way up my uterus. This night would surely change our relationship forever.

"Somebody else we should invite while we're at it?"

The look Sakura sent me told me there would be no mercy and no room for my sassy comments. She wasn't having any of it so I stayed quiet until Sasuke came barging in. I heard him rip open the door and run over without closing it. I had enough to think about as it was so the silence was calming, I didn't want to hear a word from him. If he did nothing I could perhaps ignore the fact that he was there viewing.

"Sasuke, get a bowl of hot water, cold water and lots of rags and towels!"

"Shouldn't we get her to a bed or something?"

Sakura shook her head and dived under my dress again. She seemed to be in a hurry with everything and that was not a good sign, was it?

"Not enough time, this is happening _now!_ "

"Now?"

Came the unison response from the soon to be parents. Itachi sobered immediately almost throwing himself on his butt down on the floor hands running up his face and into his hair. There was no time for anything, this was happening now. He knew he had been working hard on me, but he hadn't expected this to happen now.

"Itachi, get some pillows!"

Sakura had a cold head in this and was throwing out demands, Sasuke too was quick to return. He looked eager like buckets of pure energy had been poured into his head and filled his body. He looked ready for everything; he was awaiting this child too.

"God! Sasuke! Don't stand by my legs! Stand by my head if you're going to be here!"

Sasuke looked away from Sakura immediately and took a few steps to the right and ended up by my head. Itachi was standing still looking at the box where he kept the pillows. Those were the pillows he used when he hosted tea parties with the dead.

"Today Itachi!"

Sakura wasn't showing him any mercy either. He moved with determined steps once she had broken the spell, opened the box and tossed a pillow to Sakura. She grabbed it and placed it under her knees and without further ado she was under the skirt again.

"Sasuke, my nursing kit. The one in the kitchen."

I looked up. Had Sakura prepared a nursing kit if I were going to end up like this? Had she known? No, she couldn't have known when my daughter was going to pop out. She was just prepared. I felt Itachi lift my head and place a pillow under my head.

It felt better lying on the pillow as I looked up on the ceiling. There were a few windows and I found myself looking at the moon. As expected it was full tonight casting silver rays of light down on whoever found themselves strolling the streets tonight. Much like it had the first time I had come over with Itachi, but I hadn't been interested in the moon that night.

I was confused as to what was going on. My false contractions had hurt so much but I hardly felt these. I was almost neurotic. What if that was a bad sign? What if something was wrong? There always seemed to be something wrong with this pregnancy. Not one thing had gone smoothly and during labor was the last shot for this unborn baby to cause more problems before she entered the world and it would surely give her problems.

Why was Sakura still under my dress, it couldn't be that interesting. I felt uneasy having her so close to… everything and gawking. Looking intently as a body would be leaving my body. I would just be me after tonight. I wouldn't be pregnant. I would be just me in my body. There would be no more kicking. I would miss it. I almost wanted to shut my legs but it wasn't how everything worked.

"Looks like I'll be here anyway."

"Shut up!"

I didn't know why I suddenly was so annoyed. We were having a good time before this happened, a rather good one, almost too good. I had been thinking about him and her. How he had said that there would never us two. He was the only one to reject me and I had opened up and thrown myself at him so many times. Still he wanted another, another who wasn't the mother of his child. We would never be the picture perfect family.

I knew we never would be.

"God! Sasuke! Head!"

He was just standing there again, casually hanging right next to the action. It was bad enough having Sakura under my skirt, I didn't want her to invite Sasuke too. He rolled his eyes and came further up by my head. Itachi was standing still watching Sakura move.

I lay motionless waiting for instructions. I had read how this happened in books, I had read it from a medical point of view and I had read first hand experiences. I was starting to feel that nothing I had every read applied to this situation.

None of the first hand experiences had a family reunion in the same room, no one had their best friend all up in their damned vagina!

"Itachi! She's hot, give her a cold towel!"

Sakura was out for a second adjusting my legs and found another pillow. She slapped my butt to signal for me to rise it and she lay a few pillows underneath. Itachi grabbed a towel and dipped it in the bowl with cold water. I noticed there was a slight shake to his hands. He didn't even press the towel before he slapped it on the top of my face. It had dripped everywhere.

I grabbed it and tossed it on the wall with a slight scream. Both males shuddered. They had seen how I had been under false labor and was awaiting dooms day. They had only been awaiting the explosion of name calling and lose objects.

"She said give me a cold towel not a cold bath!"

Sasuke gave it a go and handed the new towel so that I could place it on my own forehead. That was better. He had actually done good. It wasn't that hard getting the excess water out of the towel and it had made me feel that much better.

"Thank you Sasuke, just one thing… My head, now!"

Why was the boy constantly below my waist? I didn't want him there at all.

"Are you trying to peep? That's sick Sasuke!"

The whole boy turned red and I took to laughing. Even with the slight pain and discomfort I was starting to feel I was laughing. He shook his head desperately making me laugh harder. Even Itachi had a small chuckle at the expense of his little brother after asking him such a question. Only Sakura stayed quiet.

"Everything looks good, Ino!"

Sakura gave me a solid slap on the inside of my thigh and I shot up. Man did that girl hit hard, even when she wasn't intending to do so. I felt bad for Naruto always being in the receiving end all these years. Thankfully Hinata had straightened him out in some ways and the punches were further apart, but they hadn't stopped far from it.

"Itachi! I'm thirsty!"

Everything was rushed and demanded right now. The only calm person in the room was Sakura and it wasn't like she was part of anything on the outside as she was hiding underneath my skirt. Probably waiting to catch my child like some sort of ball.

Itachi returned with a tray of every beverage he had found.

"Is that green tea with honey?"

"It could be…"

I nodded, he grabbed the cup and was gone again. He must have made tea without the honey. Everything went so fast and to me it seemed like he had been gone for two seconds but he had had enough time to boil water and brew tea.

"Ino, is that a hickey?"

Sasuke bent over looking down at my neck. I guess that was better than having him down by my legs. Even Sakura shot her head up. Sweat was glistening on her forehead and her hair was sticking to her face. No, it had been better having him down by my legs than to try and come up with an excuse for the hickey.

"Does she have a hickey?"

She addressed her boyfriend knowing I would only deny it. He nodded and had to jump out of my reach to avoid my hands.

"SASUKE! HEAD!

\- Sakura, don't you have any painkillers to give me or something?"

My discomfort was growing by the second and I was starting to feel real pain.

"Too late for that, Ino, but you're doing a good job pushing!"

Sakura was under again having given me bloody thumbs up. I could see Sasuke get goose bumps by the sight of my blood.

"What you mean pushing? I'm giving birth right now?!"

Sakura was back again with a surprised look on her face. Behind her a cup was dropped and she was fast to pull my shirt back down. Itachi soon followed and Sasuke rushed to his brother's aid again going below my waist.

"Really Ino? Really? God I hate you right now."

With that Sakura was gone and I was left confused. Was she exiting right now? Shouldn't I be screaming and wishing I was dead. That was what I thought experiencing birth was like. I beleieved that there would be endless screaming and pain as if the child was trying to claw itself out and shit. Actual shit and not figuratively.

Sasuke helped his brother to his feet again and guided him over to the box where he kept his pillows. The color was drained from his face and his lip quivered. He placed his hand in front of his lips when he sat down, looking at me, then Sasuke and then back at the floor.

"I saw it all, Sasuke."

I growled and looked over at them. There was a reason I hadn't wanted Itachi to be there when I gave birth. Sure this hadn't been my biggest fear, but god damn it I had known nothing good would come of it.

"You're worse than me!"

I shouted to Itachi and he was too shook up to even respond. Seriously, it couldn't have been that bad. Sure it probably wasn't a pleasant sight, I was glad I couldn't see any of it. Still it couldn't have been that horrible that he out of everyone fainted.

It was just me and his daughter.

It was a natural thing.

Sasuke wrapped a supporting hand around his brother trying to comfort him. Sasuke had been hanging around my waist as if he was my belt and wanted to see what was going on. He in all probability wanted to see it because it was the first Uchiha since the massacre. He wanted to see that everything was going along just fine.

"Get over it, it was just some blood and gore."

Itachi shook his head even if Sakura couldn't see him.

"No, it was a butt!"

I burst out laughing again for the second time. This was turning out to be a good event, it wasn't nearly as painful as I had expected. That was until my laughter was replaced by a shriek.

Now came the pain. The mind numbing pain that made me forget everything and lose focus. I shrieked and pulled my head back ripping my hair. I wanted it to stop, I wanted it to all go away. It just kept going.

"There it is!"

Sakura was probably pleased now that I was suffering. It was as if she was trying to stitch together my separated body with a hammer.

"It's all going to be worth it soon!"

I had problems believing her and wanted to toss something, anything on the wall. It was a small comfort that the wind outside had picked up blowing cold air inside the room.

It was very small.

The pain seemed only to intensify and I was sure I was going to die when it all slowed down and the pain ceased to matter. They magically disappeared due to one reason.

I heard cries. Even the boys stopped their pity party behind me and looked up. Once again Sakura returned from beneath my skirt but this time she wasn't alone.

She was holding the most beautiful human being I had ever seen. She dipped a towel in the hot water and tried to clean her off some before she was handed to me. I knew I had one Uchiha over each shoulder but I didn't care.

She stretched her hands and opened her eyes blinking a few times and she stopped crying. She looked at her mother and stretched her hand further. Itachi lifted his hand and met hers. She immediately grabbed his finger and looked over at him.

Sasuke had a large grin on his face and Sakura was enjoying just looking at the four of us.

Every waken night, every time I had worn two different shoes outside, every time I had to pee, every forced meal, every appointment with Sakura, all the planning and all the fights were now all worth it now that I had her in my arms.

"She looks just like her father."

She really did, perhaps not the shape of her eyes. Her facial structure, her dark eyes and black hair it was all Itachi but it didn't matter. I still loved her from the first time I saw her. She was so beautiful and to me she was every kind of perfection.

"If I didn't know any better I'd wondered if Itachi had found a way to asexually reproduce inside of you."

I started laughing then I started crying. She was just so perfect and I was so lucky to have her. My life had changed and I already knew it was for the better.

"Inokoto, Ino from my side and koto after your mother."

"Inokoto… I love it.

\- Hey Inokoto, pleased to meet you. I'm your father and this is your mother."

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Woho! I don't know if Inokoto really could be a name, but accept it because I'm rolling with it! Thank you all who reviewed and stayed with me when I picked up the story again. The first chapter of the sequel should already be up. Look for the story called Childhood!

EMG

Mari: Now it's here! Hope you're pleased!

Pong: They're going to be happy parents! They can't hate each other, hehe. As for them as a couple? I'm not telling.

ShikaIno: Thank you! Trying to redeem poor Itachi to some degree by shedding some light to why he's sometimes a douche.

TrapQueen: Thank you! I ended up quite pleased with it myself, it put things in perspective and drastically changed Itachi and how Ino understands him. He went to end things with her, but when he saw her he couldn't. Ino was too much of a risk, an uncertainty something plan ahead, certain of everything, control freak, no surprises Itachi decided he couldn't do. He couldn't try a maybe with Ino when he had something certain with this other girl. Hope this chapter and response explained it so that you understand!


	51. Childhood

Just thought I should let everyone know in a separate chapter that the sequel is up and named _**Childhood.**_ If you'd like to read it you're more than welcome, I'd appreciate it. The tone is different than this story, but it'll get to the dark parts and tones from this eventually. I had great fun writing it and hope you will too!

EMG

The First Year:

Mistaken Identity

"I thought you were having a girl…"

Shikamaru looked down in the crib and looked at the face of the baby that was lying there. He had gone to visit his friend, Ino at the Uchiha compound. Something he thought he'd never do. Yamanaka and Uchiha. They just didn't fit.

It didn't seem right that three days ago they had a child together and she still she hadn't left his house. It worked out for the better he knew the life of being one out of two parents and the life as a single parent. There was no doubt as to what he had found most comfortable just considering the workload that came with a child.

Shikadai was constantly crying too. Constantly.

Shikamaru's father had just laughed at him when he had complained. Apparently he had cried his fair share as a child too. Ino and her child on the other hand had been mostly quiet. One would have thought it was the other way around had you known them.

"Maybe she'll grow out of her man jaw?"

Choji tried to comfort his former female teammate. It could be that the child would grow out of that big, square rather masculine jaw. She must have gotten that from her grandfather on the father side, or mother side. The squareness was definitively from the father side.

"She's a cute feminine girl, she doesn't have any man jaw!"

Ino slapped Choji who was closest. They should have known better than to provoke her like that. They knew her and they knew how she reacted to most things and from what they knew she was very protective of her child.

Rumors had spread, or maybe just Sakura had told them when they came, that Ino had already bossed Itachi around to babyproof the house the first day after Inokoto's birth or else Ino would take her and leave.

Itachi wanted to be close to his daughter and was happy to comply to all of Ino's crazy demand. He was certain that their child would never reach to top of the bookshelves in his study, but he was happy to place rubber around the edges, even at the very top.

"Don't let her get your finger."

Itachi warned as he rushed by with paint in his face. Ino had probably bossed him around to paint something. As former teammates they would have a moment of silence for Itachi when they left and five minutes of cheers hoping Ino would move in with him permanently and they would be spared of most of her pestering.

Itachi would always remember the first time he had let his daughter hold his finger. He hadn't known a baby could possess such strength but she had easily dislocated his finger. He'd have to wait for Sakura to clean up before she had a look at it.

Poor Sakura looked more exhausted than Ino who had just given birth. It didn't fit with any of the books he had read. Sakura had been a mess after while Ino had eventually crawled to bed a few hours later with their child clutched in her hands.

Choji would be the one to try and lighten the mood.

"She's still pretty, don't worry."


End file.
